TY - CONF
TI - Environmental Monitoring Plan of the pre-operational phase of the Biscay Marine Energy Platform (bimep) project
AU - Bald, J
AU - Galparsoro, I
AU - Gonzalez, M
AU - Hernández, C
AU - Liria, P
AU - Mader, J
AU - Muxika, I
AU - Adarraga, I
AU - Cruz, I
AU - Merkiegui, M
AU - Martinez, J
AU - Ruiz, J
AU - Torre-Enciso, Y
AU - Marina, D
T2 - Bilbao Marine Energy Week 2015
AB - The Biscay Marine Energy Platform (bimep) is an offshore infrastructure for the demonstration and testing of wave energy harnessing devices promoted by the Basque Entity of Energy (Ente Vasco de la Energía - EVE). Bimep is located close to Arminza town (Basque Country, Northern Spain) and it consists on an 5.3 km2 sea area between 50 and 90 m depths where four static submarine cables will be placed, operating at 13kV and 5MW. On the first of June 2009, the General Council on Environmental Quality Assessment of the Ministry of Rural, Marine and Natural Environment of the Spanish Government, on the light of the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) of the bimep project undertaken by AZTI in 2008, decided not to submit the project to the whole Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process. Nevertheless, the Environmental Impact Statement (EISt) of the Ministry, taking into account the great uncertainties about some predicted environmental impacts, underlined the need to implement the proposed Environmental Monitoring Program (EMP) of the EIS which is proposed to be undertaken in four different steps or phases: (i) preoperational phase; (ii) during installation and commissioning and (iii) operational phase. This work presents the methodology and results of the preoperational phase on some environmental factors such as, icthiofauna, benthic communities, marine acoustics, mammals, and hydrodynamics. The results of this phase have improved the information and characterization of the environmental characteristics of the bimep area described in the EIS, which will be used in later phases of the EMP in order to check if the observed impacts are in the range of the impacts foreseen in the EIS, together with the checking of the fulfilment of mitigating measures proposed in the EIS.
DA - 2015/04//
PY - 2015
SP - 2
LA - English
KW - Marine Energy
KW - Wave
ER -