A bibliometric review on the implications of renewable offshore marine energy development on marine species

Siddharth Suhas Kulkarni*, David John Edwards

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The growing global demand for sustainable and environmentally friendly energy has stimulated the rapid adoption of renewable offshore energy. However, infrastructure needed for green energy production ironically impacts upon marine species and biodiversity. Consequently, this positional review paper seeks to comprehensively synthesise the prevailing body of knowledge on the impact of offshore energy development on a broad range of marine species. An interpretivist philosophical stance and inductive reasoning was adopted using scientometric analysis to conduct a rich synthesis of extant literature. From an operational perspective, the Scopus database was utilised to search for key terms on the phenomena under investigation and using the VoS Viewer software for the identification of trends using scientometric maps. The analysis reveals that research in this area of science has increased significantly over the last decade but private sector involvement is conspicuous by its absence. Primary concerns among the research community include the impact of energy development on the abundance of species, pollution and biodiversity behaviour and migration. At present, researchers have extensively focused on the impact of offshore wind farms on fish and marine mammals. However, the literature reveals no significant long-term impact upon energy development on most marine species albeit, short-term interference has raised concerns (from sound, disruption of navigation and foraging patterns, and damage of habitat). To minimise short term disruption, researchers have recommended the use of acoustic deterrence during construction, enforcement of protected areas and continued research.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)211-222
Number of pages12
JournalAquaculture and Fisheries
Volume7
Issue number2
Early online date16 Nov 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2022

Bibliographical note

© 2021 Shanghai Ocean University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license 4.0

Keywords

  • Animals
  • Infrastructure
  • Marine energy
  • Marine species
  • Noise
  • Offshore energy development
  • Wind farms

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