Balancing marine species conservation with cost-effective renewable energy development

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Framework for modeling trade-offs between renewable energy costs and wildlife conservation, applicable to other species and regions.

🏢実務担当者:Developers can use the mitigation scenarios to plan construction to reduce environmental impact while controlling costs.

🏛政策担当者:Regulators can use the approach to design permitting conditions that align climate and biodiversity goals.

Climate change is necessitating renewable energy development while contributing to shifting wildlife phenology and distribution. Renewable energy may require anthropogenic activity and wildlife to co-occur. Here we develop a framework to identify trade-offs between financial costs to developers and conservation, considering the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) and offshore wind energy development. By coupling an offshore wind energy construction simulation with a density surface model to quantify the number of right whales exposed to pile-driving noise under ten mitigation scenarios, we highlight mitigation measures, notably seasonal restrictions and noise attenuating devices, that can yield conservation value with minimal financial burden. As societies continue to refine and determine suitable financial and ecological trade-offs for development, frameworks like ours can be useful for exploring conservation challenges to ensure co-benefits for climate and biodiversity. The authors consider the potential conflict between renewable energy development (offshore wind) and wildlife (North Atlantic right whales, Eubalaena glacialis). They demonstrate a framework to identify trade-offs under different scenarios, maximizing conservation with minimal financial burden.

• openalex https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-026-02696-9first seen 2026-07-19 04:40:19