Measuring sensitivity of two OSPAR indicators for a coastal food web model under offshore wind farm construction

Aurore Raoux (1, 2) , Géraldine Lassalle (3) , Jean-Philippe Pezy (1) , Samuele Tecchio (2) , Georges Safi (2) , Bruno Ernande (4) , Camille Mazé (5) , François Le Loc’h (5, 6) , Justine Lequesne (7) , Valerie Girardin (8) , Jean-Claude Dauvin (1) , Nathalie Niquil (2, 9, 10, 11)

1 M2C - Morphodynamique Continentale et Côtière
2 BOREA - Biologie des Organismes et Ecosystèmes Aquatiques
3 UR EABX - Ecosystèmes aquatiques et changements globaux
4 LRHBL - Laboratoire Ressources halieutiques Boulogne sur mer
5 LEMAR - Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Environnement Marin (LEMAR)
6 IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement
7 CLCC Henri Becquerel - Centre de Lutte Contre le Cancer Henri Becquerel Normandie Rouen
8 LMNO - Laboratoire de Mathématiques Nicolas Oresme
9 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
10 UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie
11 NU - Normandie Université

A combination of modelling tools was applied to simulate the impacts of the future Courseulles-sur-mer offshore wind farm (OWF) construction (Bay of Seine, English Channel) on the ecosystem structure and functioning. To do so, food-web models of the ecosystem under three scenarios were constructed to investigate the effect caused by the OWF of added substrate (reef effect), fishing restriction (reserve effect), and their combined effect. Further, Ecological Network Analysis indices and Mean Trophic Level were derived to investigate their suitability for detecting changes in the ecosystem state. Our analysis suggests changes in the ecosystem structure and functioning after the OWF construction, the ecosystem maturity was predicted to increase, but no alterations in its overall resilience capacity.

Keywords: Marine renewable energy; Reef effect; Ecosim; Mean Trophic Level; Reserve effect; ACL; Ecopath; Ecological Network Analysis

Domains: Environmental Sciences; Biodiversity and Ecology

Aurore Raoux, Géraldine Lassalle, Jean-Philippe Pezy, Samuele Tecchio, Georges Safi, et al.. Measuring sensitivity of two OSPAR indicators for a coastal food web model under offshore wind farm construction. Ecological Indicators, 2019, 96 (1), pp.728 - 738. ⟨10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.07.014⟩. ⟨hal-01938892⟩