The work presents a comprehensive picture of the wind energy potential in the coastal environment of the Black and the Caspian Seas. 10-year of data coming from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction was considered as the main source. This dataset was subsequently compared with both in situ and remotely sensed measurements. The results show that the western side of the Black Sea has an enhanced wind power potential, especially in the vicinity of the Crimean Peninsula. As regards the Caspian Sea, the northeastern sector can be considered more energetic. A direct comparison of various wind parameters corresponding to the locations with higher potential in the two target areas considered was also carried out, in order to notice the similarities and the key features that could be taken into account in the development of an offshore wind project. Finally, it can be concluded that the coastal environments of the Black and the Caspian Seas can become in the near future promising locations for the wind energy extraction, as well as for the hybrid wind-wave energy farms that could play an important role also in the coastal protection.

The aim of the present work is to assess the wind and wave climate in the Black Sea while considering various data sources. A special attention is given to the areas with higher navigation traffic. Thus, the results are analyzed for the sites located close to the main harbors and also along the major trading routes. The wind conditions were evaluated considering two different data sets, the reanalysis data provided by NCEP-CFSR (U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction-Climate Forecast System Reanalysis) and the hindcast results given by a Regional Climate Model (RCM) that were retrieved from EURO-CORDEX (European Domain-Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment). For the waves, there were considered the results coming from simulations with the SWAN (Simulating Wave Nearshore) model, forced with the above-mentioned two different wind fields. Based on these results, it can be mentioned that the offshore sites seem to show the best correlation between the two datasets for both wind and waves. As regards the nearshore sites, there is a good agreement between the average values of the wind data that are provided by the different datasets, except for the points located in the southern part of the Black Sea. The same trends noticed for the average values remain also valid for the extreme values. Finally, it can be concluded that the results obtained in this study are useful for the evaluation of the wind and wave climate in the Black Sea. Also, they give a more comprehensive picture on how well the wind field provided by the Regional Climate Model, and the wave model forced with this wind, can represent the features of a complex marine environment as the Black Sea is.

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The aim of the present work is to provide an overview of the possible implications involving the influence of a generic marine energy farm on the nearshore processes. Several case studies covering various European coastal areas are considered for illustration purposes. These include different nearshore areas, such as the Portuguese coast, Sardinia Island or a coastal sector close to the Danube Delta in the Black Sea. For the case studies related to the Portuguese coast, it is noted that a marine energy farm may reduce the velocity of the longshore currents, with a complete attenuation of the current velocity for some case studies in the coastal area from Leixoes region being observed. For the area located close to the Danube Delta, it is estimated that in the proposed configuration, a marine energy farm would provide an efficient protection against the wave action, but it will have a relatively negligible impact on the longshore currents. Summarizing the results, we can conclude that a marine energy farm seems to be beneficial for coastal protection, even in the case of the enclosed areas, such as the Mediterranean or Black seas, where the erosion generated by the wave action represents a real problem.