Not necessarily all gold that shines: appropriate ecological context setting needed!
Degraer, S.; Kerckhof, F.; Reubens, J.; Vanermen, N.; De Mesel, I.; Rumes, B.; Stienen, E.W.M.; Vandendriessche, S.; Vincx, M. (2013). Not necessarily all gold that shines: appropriate ecological context setting needed!, in: Degraer, S. et al. (Ed.) Environmental impacts of offshore wind farms in the Belgian part of the North Sea: Learning from the past to optimise future monitoring programmes. pp. 175-181
In: Degraer, S.; Brabant, R.; Rumes, B. (Ed.) (2013). Environmental impacts of offshore wind farms in the Belgian part of the North Sea: Learning from the past to optimise future monitoring programmes. Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Operational Directorate Natural Environment, Marine Ecology and Management Section: Brussels. ISBN 978-90-9027-928-2. 239 pp.
At present, everybody agrees that offshore wind farms do impact the natural environment. Whether or not these impacts should be valued positive or negative, or ecologically and societally acceptable, however remains an open question. While boosting local species richness, the artificial hard substrata may for example also open the door to non-indigenous and even invasive species. Some fish and seabirds are further known to be attracted to wind farms, but fish do not necessarily take profit from these structures and seabirds may suffer from an increased collision risk. The true impact will therefore be valued only if local observations are up scaled to the ecoregion level.
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