PURE WIND
PURE WIND
We are a consortium funded to study the operational noise from offshore wind farms and its impact on marine ecosystems, and synthesise knowledge and best practices from fixed offshore wind and translate it to relevant policy application for fixed offshore wind farm.
Our funder, JPI Oceans, is a pan-European intergovernmetnal platform that supports research and innovation leading to better sustainability outcomes for seas and oceans. Impact of underwater noise is one of the topics that has been identified as needing a better knolwedge base under this platform.
Offshore wind farms are increasingly seen as a vaible option in the switch to green and sustainable economies. However, our understanding of their impacts on the marine ecosystems are limited. We are aiming to address gaps in knowledge related to impacts stemming from noise emitted by these energy generating facilities.
PURE WIND: imPact of soUnd on maRine Ecosystems from offshore WIND energy generation
Sounds from offshore wind farms (OWF) are among the main contributors of anthropogenic noise to the marine environment. Substantial effort has been expanded on understanding possible impacts of noise resulting from the development stages of the OWF lifecycle, but despite 30 years of their operation in the EU waters, our understanding of the impacts of the operational phase on marine ecosystems is more limited. In this consortium, we aim to address this gap by expanding our knowledge of the radiating noise and the biological consequences of these operations and placing them in appropriate regulatory contexts, including provisions for adaptive mitigation advice. Our main objectives are:
- Quantify key features of the acoustic energy emitted and radiated from fixed and floating OWF, identifying suitable metrics and use sound propagation modeling to predict radiated sound levels in near and far fields radiated noise to simulate and understand the cumulative effect of multiple windfarm arrays/clusters
- Identify cross-basin soundscapes and sensitive habitats
- Identify spatial and qualitative use of operating OWF by harbour porpoises and harbour seals
- Study the impact of OWF noise on zooplankton and fish
- Advance our knowledge of acute and cumulative effects of operating OWF noise across the food web
- Develop knowledge and tools for integration of a comprehensive numerical model encompassing all aspects of OWF noise production and propagation and facilitate assessment of planned OWF expansion for spatial planning and environmental impact
- Synthesise knowledge and best practices from EU and International experiences (standards, guidelines, approaches, frameworks, tools and methodologies) with fixed offshore wind development and translate for application in the development of policy, mitigation, and regulation for new fixed and floating OWF
- Broadly share our results with policy and management community as well as scientific and general public and contribute to training of the next generation of scientists to work on these problems
PURE WIND Team
PURE WIND is a consortium consisting of a large number of researchers and support staff from 11 institution and 7 countries. Below are links to profiles for each of the project team members. Feel free to get in touch if you want to know more about us and PURE WIND research.
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Ana Širović – project coordinator; impact of noise on zooplankton, soundscape monitoring and evaluation; overall management |
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Nicole Aberle-Malzahn – Impact of noise on zooplankton |
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Justine Courboulès – Impact of noise on zooplankton |
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Eric Delory – PLOCAN lead; Characterization of sound from fixed and floating wind farms |
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Silvana Neves – Characterization of sound from fixed and floating wind farms |
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José Antonio Díaz – VRE implementation |
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Patricia Caro Ruiz – ULPGC lead; Point-source acoustic propagation modeling |
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Alonso Hernandez – Point-source acoustic propagation modeling |
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Melania Cubas Armas – Point-source acoustic propagation modeling |
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Sara Pensieri – CNR lead; Soundscape assessment |
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Roberto Bozzano – Soundscape assessment |
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Andrea Trucco – UNIGE lead; wind-specific noise predictions |
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Gabriele Moser – Wind-specific noise predictions |
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Silvana Dellepiane – Wind-specific noise predictions |
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Jeff Schnitzler – TIHO lead; impact of noise on seals |
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Tobias Schaffeld – Impact of noise on seals |
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Nina Maurer – Impact of noise on seals |
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Julia Jenikejew – Impact of noise on seals |
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Gerry Sutton – UCC lead; regulatory policy and governance framework harmonisation |
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Jessica Giannoumis – Regulatory policy and governance framework harmonisation |
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Shauna Creane – Comprehensive noise modeling |
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Diogo Neves – Comprehensive noise modeling |
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Alain Norro – RBINS lead; impact of noise on porpoises, soundfield characterisation |
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Bob Rumes – Impact of noise on porpoises |
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Sofya Aoufi – Impact of noise on porpoises |
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Benedikt Niesterok – BSH lead; soundfield characterisation, policy-relevant knowledge synthesis |
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Maria Boethling – Policy-relevant knowledge synthesis |
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Isabella Kratzer – Policy-relevant knowledge synthesis |
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Carina Juretzek – Policy-relevant knowledge synthesis |
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Christian Krüger – Policy-relevant knowledge synthesis |
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Aliaksandr Lisimenka – GMU Lead; impact of sound on fish |
Partners
PURE WIND consortium is led by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), but is a team effort of 11 partner institutions from seven countries. Every partner brings different strengths and expertise into the consortium, from physics, acoustics, biology and ecology, to policy and modeling, making us a truly multidisciplinary team. Click on the logos below to learn more about our partner institutions.
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and with BSH subcontractors
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Funding
PURE WIND is funded through JPI Oceans action on Underwater Noise under grants from our respective national funding agencies.
Our project has been endorsed by the UN Ocean Decade.
November 2024
In mid-November, CNR, GMU, and PLOCAN met on Canary Islands to deploy an acoustic zooplankton fish profiler from CNR, an autonomous multi-channel acoustic recorder from GMU, a 1-channel underwater acoustic recorder from PLOCAN and an acoustic release from GMU. The deployment took place on November 20th near the offshore wind test areas of the Canary Islands. The main objective is to improve knowledge of diel vertical migration of zooplankton and fish near single wind turbine. The instruments will collect data until the end of April 2025.
Photo credit: José Antonio Díaz (PLOCAN)
July 2024
This has been a busy month for the NTNU crew! First, we successfully recovered the passive acoustic recorder that was deployed last year. Then, after a week of prep and setup with lots of helping hands, we are now underway with data collection for the mesocosm experiment, to investigate the impact of operational OWF noise on plankton community.
Photos: A Širović/NTNU
June 2024
PURE WIND had its second in-person all hands meeting the day before JPI Oceans midterm review for all Underwater Noise Action consortia. It was great to see old friends again, get caught up on current progress across the consortium, make plans for further field work and start thinking about publication outputs that will results from this work.
May 2024
On May 7, PLOCAN and GMU deployed underwater recorders in the vicinity of the Canary Islands offshore wind test sites to collect recordings of operational noise. The instruments will stay in the water for approximately a month, and be recovered in July, weather permitting.
Photo: S Neves/PLOCAN
March 2024
Starting in December 2022 and through March 2024, so through the entire 2023, RBINS was busy with moorings of underwater recorders inside two PARKWIND wind parks: Northwester 2 and Belwind. As a part of PURE WIND, they have recorded a full year of operational sound from these areas. Next up in 2024 is post-processing and analysis.
Photos: A Norro/RBINS
October - November 2023
While many in the consortium are continuing data collection as well as analysis data collected during previous field work efforts, our research has also been featured across media in our countries. Here are some examples of stories about PURE WIND that came out this autumn:
From the Canary Islands: https://www.laprovincia.es/sociedad/2023/11/04/canarias-ruido-plocan-ulpgc-oceanos-aerogeneradores-94210430.html
August 2023
Field work for PURE WIND included two exciting activities this month. We has a successful conclusion of microcosm experiments at Sletvik field station to conduct preliminary study of the impact of operational offshore wind farm noise on marine plankton. We also had great weather for the deployment of passive acoustic recorder offshore from Trondheimsfjorden.
Photos: A Širović & J Courboulès/NTNU
May & June 2023
From 22-26 May, several of us attended Oceanoise 2023 meeting in Vilanova i la Geltru, Spain. In addition to catching up for the consortium members, it was also an opportunity to meet up with some of the other JPI Oceans action on Underwater Noise and discuss plans for coordination and collaboration. Another outcome of the meeting was a public call for action to reduce human noise in the ocean that was put out by the meeting attendees and timed to coincide with the World Ocean Day.
February 2023
News article on the kickoff meeting for all projects funded under JPI Oceans Underwater Noise action.
Outreach
One of our main goals is to broadly share our results with policy and management community, as well as scientific and general public.
Since our project started recently, this part of the work is also still in its infancy. As one of the early public outreach actions, NTNU has been involved in the creation of brochure materials accompanying the Lost Voices exhibit at the Ringve Music Museum in Trondheim, Norway. In addition, Ana gave a well-attended public lecture discussing the importance of sound to marine life and how noise humans add to the marine environment impacts marine animals.
Please continue to check back for more updates through the years of the project.
