Offshore wind farms constitute a new and fast growing industry all over the world. This study investigates the long term impact on harbour porpoises, Phocoena phocoena, for more than 10 years (2001–12) from the first large scale offshore wind farm in the world, Nysted Offshore Wind Farm, in the Danish western Baltic Sea (72 × 2.3 MW turbines). The wind farm was brought into full operation in December 2003. At six stations, acoustic porpoise detectors (T-PODs) were placed inside the wind farm area and at a reference area 10 km to the east, to monitor porpoise echolocation activity as a proxy of porpoise presence. A modified statistical BACI design was applied to detect changes in porpoise presence before, during and after construction of the wind farm. The results show that the echolocation activity has significantly declined inside Nysted Offshore Wind Farm since the baseline in 2001–2 and has not fully recovered yet. The echolocation activity inside the wind farm has been gradually increasing (from 11% to 29% of the baseline level) since the construction of the wind farm, possibly due to habituation of the porpoises to the wind farm or enrichment of the environment due to reduced fishing and to artificial reef effects.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Negative long term effects on harbour porpoises from a large scale offshore wind farm in the Baltic—evidence of slow recovery


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Environmental Research Letters (Online) ; 7 , 4 ; 045101/1-045101/10


    Publication date :

    2012


    Size :

    10 Seiten, 21 Quellen




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




    Effects of pile-driving on harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) at the first offshore wind farm in Germany

    Dähne, Michael / Gilles, Anita / Lucke, Klaus et al. | Tema Archive | 2013


    Long-term wind climate in a large oceanic island harbour

    Rodriguez, G. / Wessex Institute of Technology | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2002


    OFFSHORE WIND FARM

    IMAKITA AKIHIKO / CHO TAKUJI / YAMAZAKI TOSHISUKE et al. | European Patent Office | 2019

    Free access


    Offshore Wind Farm Construction

    Liu, Yongqian / Han, Shuang / Yan, Jie | Springer Verlag | 2025