Scottish Government is seeking for offshore consultancy services, with an aim to provide ‘best practice’ guidance on a standardised approach to survey design and statistical modelling (DSM) of cetacean and bird distributions at offshore renewable development areas (wind, wave and tidal).
This is in order to improve the estimates of the densities of target species and improve the quality of environmental impact assessments.
Specifically, the study will aim to review current spatial modelling approaches to provide density surfaces from transect data and develop modelling approaches to deal specifically with data obtained through the above best practice survey design.
It will also provide the best practice guidance for designing at sea surveys of the densities of marine mammals and seabirds. The study will disseminate the approach to developers and consultants and to regulators and their scientific advisors through the provision of a modelling software package (and associated training on the use and understanding of the package).
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Offshore WIND staff, October 19, 2012; Image: mmt