Is Marine Spatial Planning Enough to Overcome Biological Data Deficiencies?

Kendra Ryan, Andy Danylchuk () and Adrian Jordaan ()
Additional contact information
Kendra Ryan: Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
Andy Danylchuk: Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
Adrian Jordaan: Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003, USA

Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), 2018, vol. 20, issue 04, 1-21

Abstract: The United States only accounts for 0.2% of the global offshore wind installed capacity despite a potential technical resource four orders of magnitude greater. A cumbersome permitting process is one of the challenges in implementing new projects. Part of this process requires biological data in order to inform assessments of environmental impacts; yet these data may be lacking for particular taxa at the required scale. Marine spatial planning (MSP) is a process that often includes data identification, collection, collation and analyses components. In this paper, we conduct a collective case study of three areas with offshore wind projects located in waters managed by marine spatial plans, focusing on how data efforts inform MSP and offshore wind development. Our study finds that MSP can facilitate data efforts during the permitting phase of offshore wind projects, but that other initiatives, particularly renewable energy policies and zoning, appear critical towards establishing offshore wind.

Keywords: Offshore wind energy; environmental impact assessment; renewable energy; ecosystem-based management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1464333218500126
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:jeapmx:v:20:y:2018:i:04:n:s1464333218500126

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S1464333218500126

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM) is currently edited by Thomas Fischer

More articles in Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().