Abstract
The present deliverable identifies the information and data sources of relevance for the identification of suitable areas for the establishment of WE projects in the European Atlantic region, which considers the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of Portugal, Spain, Ireland, France and UK. The aim of the present deliverable is the collation of the most relevant information when identifying suitable areas for the development and deployment of WE projects. Identified sources of information deals with:
- Technical aspects such as wave energy resource, depth, seafloor type distribution, distance to ports and good weather windows. Those factors are of high relevance for the identification of suitable areas in terms of their technical viability.
- Legal constraints representing the spatial distribution of areas that could be under different management and legal restrictions that could affect the development or establishment of WE facilities.
- Environmental aspects for the consideration of the potential ecological risk that the establishment or development of WE facilities may have.
- Maritime activities and uses that potentially could conflict or pose limitations to the development or establishment of marine WE facilities.
It should be noted that the process of generation of relevant information for site suitability will be a continuous process throughout the SafeWAVE project, and that the information sources that we have identified at this stage, should be considered as the starting point in the analysis of identification of suitable areas for the development suitability maps.