INSITE Overall Synthesis Project 2021-2023

To provide an overall synthesis of the scientific evidence relating to the influence of man-made structures in the marine environment from a global context, including the North Sea, USA, Australia, SE Asia and beyond.

PI: Paul Somerfield (PML) with guidance and input from a core group including Antony Knights (UoP), Nicola Beaumont (PML), Michaela Schratzberger (Cefas), Silvana Birchenough (Cefas), David Paterson (UStAN) and Mike Elliott (UHull). Steven Degraer (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences) and Paul Montagna (Harte Institute, Texas A&M) will support the international aspects of the project.

Building on the important work of both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the INSITE programme, the Project Advisory Group (PAG) have commissioned an additional project to provide an overall synthesis of the evidence relating to the influence of man-made structures (MMS) in the marine environment.

This is an ambitious, globally-leading piece of work and aims to address not only the experience of INSITE in the North Sea but also capture the significant work done in the USA, Australia, SE Asia and beyond.

Phase 1 of the project, the initiation with the INSITE PIs, industry partners and wider scientific and user community, is now complete and the project is now in its delivery phase.

The project is being co-ordinated by a team in Plymouth (PML and UoP) with a core group of scientists who have knowledge of ongoing projects within INSITE Phase 2, as well as strong international connections. The team will be engaging with a group of up to 50 scientific experts to reach a view on the scientific consensus on a range of critical issues relating to the ecological role(s) of installing, operating and removing MMS in the marine environment.

The main objective of the synthesis project is to produce a position paper setting out the consensus view on the environmental implications of deploying MMS at scale, leaving non-operational MMS in situ, or removing non-operational MMS.

Project delivery commenced in January 2022 and will conclude in Spring 2023, aligned with the end of INSITE Phase 2.