Governing Offshore Wind and Biodiversity: Research Priorities for Developing Ecosystem-Based Approach.

As offshore wind plays an increasing role in the global energy transition, there is a growing focus on minimizing the negative and increasing the positive impacts of offshore wind farms. Marine biodiversity and the quality of marine ecosystems is rapidly decreasing around the world through intensive use and climate change, and the recent but vast expansion of offshore wind in regions like the North Sea become a subject of concern for the public and government. To address this problem, both public and private actors in the wind energy sector invest in solutions for monitoring and management of biodiversity and ecological impacts. This monitoring and management is often driven by digital solutions and big data approaches. Companies in the wind energy and IT sector are institutionalizing smart and long-term monitoring as new governance approaches. However, we argue that there both opportunities and limitations of the digital solutions for understanding ecological impacts of offshore wind farms and ultimately, for solving the challenges of biodiversity loss. To prevent greenwashing and maintenance of the status quo, we argue for ecosystem based approach, informed by academic and open access research on offshore wind farm monitoring in the fields of digitalization, biodiversity, wind energy, marine governance, and social science. We argue that to develop this approach, there is a need for research on the impacts of digital monitoring and management approaches for governance of offshore wind and biodiversity. We identify four key areas for future research: 1) Real time and continuous impact assessment and interventions, 2) Digital simulations and scenarios for future oriented decision-making 3) Transboundary impact assessment and 4) Active and continuous stakeholder engagement. We end with how this research agenda should guide policies for sustainable expansion of offshore wind and biodiversity around the globe.