Abstract
The rapid growth of offshore wind energy in Europe requires the construction of energy islands - artificial islands of hard substrate - which will put additional pressure on the marine environment. To mitigate this pressure, the implementation of nature-inclusive design (NID) is being considered for the construction of these islands. Research in coastal and offshore marine environments has demonstrated the benefits of NID, but these have yet to be translated into human well-being (i.e., ecosystem services (ES)). Artificial island construction provides an ideal opportunity to establish the latter, as the potential of NID can be assessed for the subtidal, intertidal and supratidal zones as a whole. The aim of this research is to develop an integrated model to assess and predict the impact of artificial island construction with a NID on the provision of ES. A system dynamics model will be constructed using a combination of experimental data on NIDs collected in the coastal and offshore marine environment and literature data to map the evolution and interactions between ES in the construction of a nature-inclusive designed artificial island. The integration of this model into the EIA aims to improve the procedure by considering the creation of environmental and human well-being benefits in addition to negative environmental impacts.
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