| Summary: | Risk assessments are an essential aspect of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) which must be completed by Marine Renewable Energy (MRE) developers. This thesis aims to provide a risk assessment in the form of a GIS tool which suggests the relative vulnerability of 12 cetacean species found in UK waters to 12 types of MRE devices, including those for offshore wind, wave and tidal energy extraction. This has ultimately been completed from assessing the vulnerability of cetaceans by compiling a biological vulnerability and species importance rating, and with baseline sighting data, to determine vulnerability based on location. The vulnerability has then been assessed using a device impact rating. The results and resultant maps produced from the risk assessment suggest that; 1. The MRE devices likely to be most impacting to cetaceans are offshore wind turbines, followed by tidal stream devices. Tidal barrages are likely to be least impacting to cetaceans. 2. The species/ device interactions which have the potential to be most impacting include sei whales, northern right whales and fin whales with offshore wind turbines, whilst the interaction with least impact is that of the humpback whale with tidal barrages and tidal lagoons. 3. Cetacean/device vulnerability maps for different cetaceans can be descriptively classified into 3 situations; cetaceans which have high vulnerability in specific locations, such as the sei, fin and northern right whales, cetaceans which have widespread moderately high vulnerability, such as dolphin species, harbour porpoise and minke whale, or species which have a widespread low vulnerability, such as the humpback whale. The risk assessment also suggests that cumulative impacts need to be assessed, how improvement can be achieved to allow for quantitative assessment and how mitigation measures can be implemented to reduce potential impacts until quantitative impact data in this sector is researched.
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