Offshore windfarms - monitoring impacts on the commercial fishing industry: good practice guidance

2 Potential Impacts on the Commercial Fishing Sector

The key purpose of monitoring is to identify and validate potential impacts and understand the effectiveness of mitigation measures. The Section below provides an overview of the potential impacts of OWFs that are generally assessed within EIARs on the commercial fishing industry

2.1 Impacts on Commercial Fisheries

The main potential impacts of OWF developments on the commercial fishing industry identified within EIAs, which may be temporary or long-term/permanent, include:

• Loss or restricted access to fishing grounds;
• Changes in catch-rates;
• Changes in target species
• Displacement of fishing effort;
• Increased steaming times;
• Increased snagging risk;
• Increased likelihood of vessel collision or allision; and
• Increased interference with fishing gear.

All commercial fisheries that may be affected should be identified. Fisheries may be affected at different phase of a project (e.eg. planning and design phase, construction, operational, decommissioning) and may be affected by different activities (e.g. surveys, vessel transits, vessel anchoring areas, wind turbines and inter-array cable areas, offshore substation platforms and export cables etc).

Key changes to the commercial fishing industry after an OWF is built could include changes in local fisheries (e.g., through changes in target species), changed fishing patterns/locations or ceasing fishing altogether. Impacts may differ between fleets in Scottish waters. For example, smaller vessels with limited geographical operational ranges may be more impacted by restricted or modified access to fishing grounds compared to larger vessels, which can operate over greater distances and can access a wider range of fishing grounds. Furthermore, impacts may also differ between developments based on layout (e.g., turbine spacing), design (e.g., floating vs fixed and target burial depth of inter-array or export cables) and installation methods. It is possible for fishing to resume within OWFs with fixed-bottom turbines for most fishing methods (Gray et al., 2016; Neitzel et al., 2024; Roach et al., 2017; Roach et al., 2022; Offshore Wind Conference, 2024), though this is dependent on the turbine layout and fisher’s perception of navigational risk. Fishing within floating OWFs is less certain due to the presence of mooring lines and/or dynamic cables extending from each turbine, which may inhibit fishing activities. However, it is important to note that some static gear fishing has been successfully conducted within a floating OWF, as demonstrated by Wright et al. (2023).

2.2 Socio-Economic Impacts on Commercial Fisheries

In addition to fisheries impacts (Section 0) from OWF, there may also be direct and indirect fisheries’ socio-economic impacts. Mitigating these impacts for individual fishers is not always feasible, as some socio-economic effects are more apparent at the community level (e.g., changes in the character of the area). Additionally, fishing vessels may find it challenging to alter business practices due to constraints related to cost, licences, quotas, and vessel size (Mackinson et al., 2006). The potential socio-economic impacts on the commercial fishing industry and local communities commonly identified within EIAs include:

Direct:

• Changes in employment, which might affect individual household and/or communities;
• Changes in earnings (i.e., loss or reduced earnings and associated income);
• Increased fuel costs;
• Gear conflict or damage to gear (and associated insurance and replacement costs); and
• Increased competition between fishers.

Indirect:

• Changes to housing and local services (e.g., if fishing is decreasing and fishers move away from certain areas, which is especially relevant for rural Scotland)
• Changes to cultural heritage (e.g., building use, oral history);
• Community conflict if resources are strained;
• Health and wellbeing, particularly if people are stressed about work and income which may have a knock-on effect on local businesses;
• Changes in the character of the area (e.g., urban development related to the OWF);
• Demographic changes (e.g., a decrease in the population);
• Impacts on other businesses in an area (e.g., fish processing factories) and communities, including social and economic impacts to the supply; and
• Food security (e.g., assessment of potential protein available from the Scottish catch and its contribution).

The potential indirect impacts may cause a change in communities as a result of impact on fishing; therefore, it is important to look at these effects. It is important to note that socio-economic study area may differ from the commercial fisheries area.