Towards Coastal Resilience and Sustainability

Geoscience Solutions for Sustainable Offshore Wind Development

“…An understanding of the site-specific conditions for each offshore wind farm has to be developed to optimise design, (de)construction, and lowrisk and cost-effective operation and maintenance (O&M) (Nielsen and Sørensen, 2011). Developing this understanding can be challenging due to sites being dynamic and possibly environmentally sensitive (Jenner et al, 2002;Brink, 2017;Topham andMcMillan, 2017, Morrissey andHeidkamp, 2018).…”

“…Such an integrated energy system (Figure 6) will help to alleviate challenges with grid capacity, which are widely reported as a limiting factor for offshore wind development around the world (Chen, 2011;Karakosta et al, 2013;Contestabile et al, 2017;Pal et al, 2017;Soukissian et al, 2017;Ahsan and Pedersen, 2018;Morrissey and Heidkamp 2018). Herein, we offer an outlook to where geoscience can contribute to increasing the tri-generation potential of offshore wind by converting electricity into hydrogen, storing electricity and hydrogen in geo-assets, and transferring electricity and hydrogen via a network of cables and pipelines to shore (Figure 6).…”

“…The deployment of low carbon infrastructure, such as wind and solar farms, are central to the strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the aim of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels (UN, 2015;IPCC, 2018;Jensen et al, 2020). Cost of offshore wind energy has rapidly decreased (Taylor et al, 2020), and the technology has high societal acceptability (Karakosta et al, 2013;Contestabile et al, 2017;Ahsan and Pedersen 2018;Morrissey and Heidkamp 2018). In 2020, a total of 32.5 GW offshore wind was in operation globally, with a further 10.4 GW under construction (World Forum Offshore Wind, 2021).…”

The blue economy: Identifying geographic concepts and sensitivities

“…The locus of where decisions are taken, and the extents (physical and economic) to which these decisions will impact have to be framed and considered in relation to the socio‐ecological “fluidity” of the marine environment. It can be argued that using a just transitions framework (Swilling & Annecke, ), which employs social justice and equity as guiding principles along with its practical focus on transdisciplinary (Nicolescu, )—an approach to problem solving that facilitates the co‐construction of knowledge among all stakeholders—can do much to address these gaps (Heidkamp & Morrissey, , ). This clearly responds to Winder and Le Heron's aforementioned call for increased critical and also practical engagement with the BE and includes an explicit focus on environmental sustainability, and also responds to concerns raised by Barbesgaard () regarding appropriate governance strategies for ocean‐related initiatives.…”

“…Given the increasing urgency of dealing with environmental pressures (resource exploitation, pollution, and especially climate change) and recognising that any type of transition process towards more sustainable socio‐ecological systems has to be considered as a long‐term 40‐to‐50‐year process (Swilling & Annecke, ), and considering that participatory action research in itself is quite messy and requires long‐term community‐based engagement, it can be argued that a pragmatic approach to engaging with the BE is our best option. As argued by Heidkamp and Morrissey (, p. 347) regarding coastal sustainability transitions, “we will need to move beyond theoretical discussions and embrace pragmatism as a guiding principle.” Thus, the search for a general relevant geographically sensitive definition for the BE is misleading—the BE has to be considered in its regional context, incorporating associated multi‐scalar socio‐ecological complexities and in the context of wider efforts to achieve a just transition.…”