COWRIE supports two free workshops for primary school students. The events have being run by the Marine Biological Association and the National Marine Aquarium on the 10th and 11th of March this year. A second workshop was held at the ORBIS Energy Centre in Lowestoft on the 2nd and 3rd April. The workshops have been designed by the Marine Biological Association and the National Marine Aquarium with funding from COWRIE to meet many units of the National Curriculum. Students will take part in three connected workshop sessions: Habitats Adaptation and Foodwebs. Pupils will discover which animals colonise the bases of the turbines and why! Technology. Pupils will see a miniature wind turbine generate electricity and then get to build their own weight bearing turbines to take back to school. Wind Turbines and the Environment. Pupils will be asked to debate the environmental and human issues of building offshore windfarms. The workshops were completely free to participating schools and the uptake has been fantastic. The Plymouth workshop days at the National Marine Aquarium are now fully booked with 120 pupils attending. All of the workshops are linked to free supporting teacher resources, activity sheets and a interactive seabed that can be found on the Education section of this website. ·
10-11 March 2009
COWRIE will be attending and exhibiting at BWEA’s 30th anniversary conference and exhibition on 21-23 October 2008.Over 2,000 people will attend BWEA30, the UK's leading renewable energy event, sponsored by RES at ExCel London. This BWEA's will be held in the North Halls at ExCel, and numerous accompanying social and networking events will take place in London, to enable delegates to relax and meet on a more informal basis.Information relating to registration fees, venue and programme can be found on the BWEA’s website.http://www.bwea.com/30/index.html
21-23 October, London
COWRIE will be attending and presenting at a conference being held by The Institute of Acoustics (IOA) on underwater noise, its measurement, impacts and mitigation. The meeting has been organized by the Underwater Acoustics Group of the IOA and will take place in the Novotel Hotel in Southampton on the 14 and 15th October 2008.This conference is intended to address all of the issues from the methods used to characterize the ambient and radiated noise fields quantitatively, through to the means for assessing the impacts of noise on marine fauna and steps required for mitigation.More information can be found at the following site.http://underwaternoise2008.lboro.ac.uk/
14-15 October, Southampton
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COWRIE is pleased to announce the release of the above report prepared by a consortium lead by RPS, the international environmental consultancy, the Food and Environment Research Agency’s Bird Management Unit and the University of Aberdeen. . COWRIE commissioned the priority research project COWRIE REMTECH 08-08 to review and provide practical guidance on using remote techniques for bird monitoring at offshore windfarms. This COWRIE report updates Desholm et al (2005). ‘Remote techniques’ encompass a variety of technical methods for ornithological studies. These have been predominantly developed for scientific purposes. However, many are inappropriate or impractical to implement as monitoring solutions for Scottish Territorial Waters Round (STWR) and Round 3 (R3) developments. The report aims to promote the wider concept of ensuring that all bird monitoring techniques including ‘remote techniques’ (where necessary) are combined, drawing on their relative merits, as part of an Integrated Ornithological Monitoring Program (IOMP). Finally, this report also provides a Guidance framework within the development process for offshore windfarms in the UK in order that “remote techniques” successfully provide added value to standard baseline bird monitoring techniques (aerial and boat-based) during the Environmental Impact Assessment process. REMTECH 08-08 FINAL REPORT.PDF (3.05 MB)
June 2009
Cowrie is pleased to announce the release of the above report prepared by a consortium lead by Amec and including PMSS and BTO. Cowrie commissioned the priority research project CIBIRD with the objective to provide guidance for the assessment of cumulative/in-combination environmental effects on bird populations in relation to offshore wind farm developments. This generic process is referred to as Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA). The need for guidance arises from the limited advice currently available and the increasing number of operational offshore wind farms, together with those under construction, consented or in planning which means that the issue of cumulative impact is becoming more prominent. The report covers the processes, methods and techniques to be utilised for CIA building on recommendations made at an earlier COWRIE workshop held in 2007. The full report including the executive summary and all appendices as a single document can be downloaded here CIA Final report combined.pdf (2.43 MB)
11/06/2009
Cowrie is pleased to announce the release of the above report prepared by a consortium lead by Cranfield University and including CMACS, CEFAS, CIMS and University of Liverpool. COWRIE commissioned the priority research project COWRIE 2.0 EMF with the objective to determine if electromagnetic sensitive fish respond to controlled electromagnetic fields (EMF) with the characteristics and magnitude of EMF associated with offshore wind farm power cables. The project was undertaken by a consortium with representatives from Cranfield University (Project Coordinators), Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies Ltd (CMACS), Centre for Fisheries, Environment and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) and Centre for Intelligent Monitoring Systems (CIMS), University of Liverpool. The project took an experimental research approach by enclosing a section of sub-sea cable within a suitable area of seabed using an approach know as ‘mesocosm studies’ to allow the response of elasmobranch test species to controlled electromagnetic fields to be assessed within a semi-natural setting. Prior to the study and following peer-review of the project design it had been agreed with members of COWRIE that the mesocosm approach would be thebest option for obtaining scientifically rigorous information required to answer the primary research question: Do electromagnetically (EM) sensitive organisms respond to anthropogenic EMFs of the type and magnitude generated by offshore wind farms? Answering this question is an important first stage before needing to consider whether any effects of EMF may be positive or negative? The focus of our study and this report was therefore on addressing the primary objective, which will then be of value for further consideration of potential effects. Full report.pdf (5MB)
March 2009
Cowrie has funded the WWT whooper swan satellite-tracking project, which aims to describe the migration routes and flight heights of whooper swans in relation to offshore wind farm sites. Whooper Swan migrate between their breeding grounds in Icelandand their wintering grounds in Britain and Ireland. You can meet the whooper swans and read their diary on the WWT whooper swan pages: http://whooper.wwt.org.uk/whooper#cowrie
20 June 2009
Last year COWRIE ran the third round of student awards for graduates and postgraduates completing a thesis on environmental research into marine renewable energy. Candidates for each category were shortlisted and asked to submit their full thesis for consideration by members of the COWRIE Board of Trustees. The winners will be announced at the end of March and awarded a prize of £750 plus entrance to the British Wind Energy Association conference.
January 2009
There are no current tender opportunities.
© COWRIE 2008
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