Monitoring Technologies for Ghost Gear and Ecosystem Biodiversity

INSPIRE is participating on a team led by the University of Rhode Island with the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD (SIO) to refine monitoring technologies for ghost gear and ecosystem biodiversity associated with offshore wind development.

INSPIRE Environmental contributed to a white paper addressing monitoring technologies for biodiversity and ghost gear at offshore wind sites. The white paper suggested methodologies to monitor biodiversity and address ghost gear around the Revolution Wind Farm area south of Rhode Island. In addition to INSPIRE Environmental, this team included University of Rhode Island, Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD (SIO).

The white paper suggested an integrated monitoring approach. The survey technologies included acoustics, optics, autonomous platforms, and remote sensing. The proposed efforts also included fieldwork tests in Years 1 and 2, and the Timeline section outlined a tentative schedule with major milestones.

Lost or derelict fishing gear, also known as ghost gear, presents a major and well- documented environmental problem. However, offshore turbine structures create a new challenge for ghost gear: preventing removal or altering accumulation within wind farms. Therefore, this project will develop methods for detecting, removing, and assessing the impacts of ghost gear on wind farms. One technology that will be explored is side-scan sonar deployed from a ship as well as part of an autonomous underwater vehicle.

Biological monitoring requirements could include biodiversity targets for introduced hard structures within wind farms. However, there is a need to standardize methods for this type of biodiversity monitoring to reduce costs, streamline the regulatory process, and detect regional changes. Therefore, the proposed project aimed to identify standard methods for evaluating the diversity of benthic epifaunal (Objective 4) and fish (Objective 5) associated with introduced hard structures in wind farms.

The intended outcome of this study is the development of industry standards for acquiring, processing, and analyzing the data to fully characterize the shift and potential value of benthic habitats associated with the introduction of novel offshore wind structures in the marine environment.

INSPIRE is leading Objective 4, which includes designing the field survey, coordinating the field survey, collecting and analyzing images, and 3D model building and analysis. The INSPIRE team will also determine if computer vision tools can automate image analysis for future projects. Finally, the INSPIRE team presented the proposed approach at a meeting organized by the Regional Wildlife Science Collaborative. INSPIRE will also co-lead Objective 5, Task 2, a collaborative project using data collected by INSPIRE and SIO.