The impact and compensation of offshore wind farm development: Analysing the institutional discourse from a french case study

In France, the public acceptability of marine renewable energies and their impacts on ecosystem services (ES) involves questions about compensation for stakeholders, who may perceive some of their activities and interests to be modified. This paper seeks to understand how impacts on ES are perceived by institutional stakeholders and what is expected in terms of compensation. It also seeks to identify the communities of practice affected. We focus our study on the planned offshore wind farm in the bay of Saint-Brieuc. Our results show that institutional discourse is heterogeneous, depending on sensitivities, interests, and who or what the stakeholders surveyed represent or defend. Stakeholders' discourse can be interpreted on various gradients of perception. Six distinct communities of practice have been identified, based on the impacts perceived by institutional stakeholders. Lastly, we show that the community of practice seems to be a proper level at which to study perceptions and assess the no-net-loss goal.

Using Habitat Equivalency Analysis to Assess the Cost Effectiveness of Restoration Outcomes in Four Institutional Contexts

At the national level, with a fixed amount of resources available for public investment in the restoration of biodiversity, it is difficult to prioritize alternative restoration projects. One way to do this is to assess the level of ecosystem services delivered by these projects and to compare them with their costs. The challenge is to derive a common unit of measurement for ecosystem services in order to compare projects which are carried out in different institutional contexts having different goals (application of environmental laws, management of natural reserves, etc.). This paper assesses the use of habitat equivalency analysis (HEA) as a tool to evaluate ecosystem services provided by restoration projects developed in different institutional contexts. This tool was initially developed to quantify the level of ecosystem services required to compensate for non-market impacts coming from accidental pollution in the US. In this paper, HEA is used to assess the cost effectiveness of several restoration projects in relation to different environmental policies, using case studies based in France. Four case studies were used: the creation of a market for wetlands, public acceptance of a port development project, the rehabilitation of marshes to mitigate nitrate loading to the sea, and the restoration of streams in a protected area. Our main conclusion is that HEA can provide a simple tool to clarify the objectives of restoration projects, to compare the cost and effectiveness of these projects, and to carry out trade-offs, without requiring significant amounts of human or technical resources.

Restoration ecology of coastal lagoons: new methods for the prediction of ecological trajectories and economic valuation

Conservation of the seven lagoons of the Palavas complex (southern France) has been severely impaired by nutrient over-enrichment during at least four decades. The effluents of the Montpellier wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) represented the main nutrient input. To improve the water quality of these lagoons, this WWTP was renovated and upgraded and, since the end of 2005, its effluents have been discharged 11 km offshore into the Mediterranean (total investment €150 M). Possibilities of ecosystem restoration as part of a conservation programme were explored by a focus group of experts. Their tasks were: (i) to evaluate the impact of the reduction of the nutrient input; (ii) if necessary, to design additional measures for an active restoration programme; and (iii) to predict ecosystem trajectories for the different cases. Extension of Magnoliophyta meadows can be taken as a proxy for ecosystem restoration as they favour the increase of several fish (seahorse) and bird (ducks, swans, herons) species, albeit they represent a trade-off for greater flamingos. Additional measures for active ecosystem restoration were only recommended for the most impaired lagoon Méjean, while the least impaired lagoon Ingril is already on a trajectory of spontaneous recovery. A multiple contingent valuation considering four different management options for the Méjean lagoon was used in a pilot study based on face-to-face interviews with 159 respondents. Three levels of ecosystem restoration were expressed in terms of recovery of Magnoliophyta meadows, including their impact on emblematic fish and avifauna. These were combined with different options for access (status quo, increasing access, increasing access with measures to reduce disturbance). The results show a willingness of local populations to pay per year about €25 for the highest level of ecological restoration, while they were only willing to allocate about €5 for additional footpaths and hides.

Abrupt shifts in the Gironde fish community: an indicator of ecological changes in an estuarine ecosystem

For decades, global climate change has directly and indirectly affected the structure and function of ecosystems. Abrupt changes in biodiversity have been observed in response to linear or sudden modifications to the environment. These abrupt shifts can cause long-term reorganizations within ecosystems, with communities exhibiting new functional responses to environmental factors. Over the last 3 decades, the Gironde estuary in southwest France has experienced 2 abrupt shifts in both the physical and chemical environments and the pelagic community. Rather than describing these shifts and their origins, we focused on the 3 inter-shift periods, describing the structure of the fish community and its relationship with the environment during these periods. We described fish biodiversity using a limited set of descriptors, taking into account both species composition and relative species abundances. Inter-shift ecosystem states were defined based on the relationship between this description and the hydro-physico-chemical variables and climatic indices defining the main features of the environment. This relationship was described using generalized linear mixed models on the entire time series and for each inter-shift period. Our results indicate that (1) the fish community structure has been significantly modified, (2) environmental drivers influencing fish diversity have changed during these 3 periods, and (3) the fish-environment relationships have been modified over time. From this, we conclude a regime shift has occurred in the Gironde estuary. We also highlight that anthropogenic influences have increased, which re-emphasizes the importance of local management in maintaining fish diversity and associated goods and services within the context of climate change.

Developing European operational oceanography for Blue Growth, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and ecosystem-based management

Operational approaches have been more and more widely developed and used for providing marine data and information services for different socio-economic sectors of the Blue Growth and to advance knowledge about the marine environment. The objective of operational oceanographic research is to develop and improve the efficiency, timeliness, robustness and product quality of this approach. This white paper aims to address key scientific challenges and research priorities for the development of operational oceanography in Europe for the next 5-10 years. Knowledge gaps and deficiencies are identified in relation to common scientific challenges in four EuroGOOS knowledge areas: European Ocean Observations, Modelling and Forecasting Technology, Coastal Operational Oceanography and Operational Ecology. The areas "European Ocean Observations" and "Modelling and Forecasting Technology" focus on the further advancement of the basic instruments and capacities for European operational oceanography, while "Coastal Operational Oceanography" and "Operational Ecology" aim at developing new operational approaches for the corresponding knowledge areas.