25.
The East Anglia Zone surveys, which were completed in 2010, were designed to inform site selection within the zone. During these surveys 643 grab samples were taken; 566 of these were arranged in a grid pattern across the zone to characterise the area and a further 77 were located to target features of interest (such as sandwaves or slopes identified through the zone wide geophysical survey). A full report from this survey as well as analyses of these data are presented in Appendix 10.2.
26.
The East Anglia THREE offshore cable corridor shares part of the East Anglia ONE offshore cable corridor (See Chapter 5 Description of the Development for further detail). Therefore, samples acquired from the East Anglia ONE offshore cable corridor survey are relevant to the East Anglia THREE offshore cable corridor. A full report from this survey as well as analyses of these data is presented in Appendix 10.3.
27.
There is a deep water shipping route that passes through the East Anglia Zone and due to safety concerns, the Zone surveys did not collect samples within this route. To address these data gaps, East Anglia THREE limited (EATL) commissioned Fugro Emu Ltd. to conduct a further benthic survey within areas of the offshore cable corridor which cross the deep water shipping route. In order to ascertain the scope of this survey, APEMLtd. were commissioned to conduct a statistical power analysis (Appendix 10.5) to identify the number of samples needed to accurately characterise the benthic communities. The results of the power analysis concluded that the East Anglia Zone survey provided a sufficient number of samples to characterise the infaunal and epifaunal communities of the East Anglia Zone and therefore the likely effects of the construction and operation of the proposed windfarm projects within it.
28.
The power analysis also concluded that 36 further grab samples would be required to accurately characterise the infaunal communities of the East Anglia THREE offshore cable corridor and three beam trawl samples would be required to adequately characterise the epifaunal communities.
29.
The final survey consisted of 49 grab samples, 39 within the East Anglia THREE offshore cable corridor and five from within the East Anglia THREE site. The additional five were not a requirement of the power analysis however it was considered that extra samples would further support the data already obtained. Six beam trawl samples were acquired from within the East Anglia THREE offshore cable corridor (the survey report is presented in Appendix 10.4).
Preliminary Environmental Information May 2014
East Anglia THREE Offshore Windfarm
Chapter 10 Benthic Ecology Page 22
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104