Fish-as-a-Service in the north sea: Sustainable fishery in OWF

• Main Authors: van Ham, Sebastiaan (author), Zijlstra, Kije (author), van Hulten, Chris (author), Laghmouchi, Kamal (author), Verschuyl, Paulien (author), Jagt, Milan (author)
• Other Authors: Voorendt, M.Z. (mentor), Leijten, M. (graduation committee), Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Sustainable fishery; fish-as-a-service; OWF; Widn Farm; Multi-purpose; Aquaculture and Marine Resource Management; atlantic cod; European lobster
• Online Access: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:7696b7ff-9b63-48fc-bb62-a6bef611cfef

The use of the North Sea has transitioned into an intensely used industrial area, with the climate agreement as a driving force. The Paris agreement demands countries to change their main energy resources from oil, coal and gas to renewable resources such as wind. The Dutch government chose to use the space offshore for the development of wind farms. These developments require a durable collaboration between the various stakeholders in the North Sea. Tensions exist between the different stakeholders in the North Sea, and the projected developments are expected to pressure these relationships even further. The need for shared multi-use areas grows as the North Sea is used more and more intensely. This report presents a multidisciplinary design for an artificially enhanced fisheries system within an offshore wind farm (OWF). The goal of this design is to provide a nature inclusive solution to increasing pressure on the fishing industry by the growing offshore wind sector. The possible implementation of a fishing industry within OWFs was analysed. This resulted in a number of applicable solution spaces. A notable solution was the Fish-as-a-Service concept, which resolves several issues that currently hinder the development of multi-purpose OWFs. In this solution, a company would fulfil the role of managing the fisheries in OWFs without the need for wind farm clients to actively partake in the fishing industry. Five target species were selected that could be harvested from an artificial reef system within an OWF. These species were European lobster, Brown crab, Atlantic cod, European seabass and Cuttlefish. The selection of these species was made based on economic interest, ecological interest, the potential for non-intrusive fishing methods and previous successes in other studies and/or projects. These species formed the basis of further ecological and financial examinations. Based on the biological and technical criteria following from the stakeholder and biological analysis, the most suitable wind farm site where ...