ABPMer has started work on integrating data on surveys offshore Scotland into the UK’s Marine Data Exchange (MDE).
The Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland have agreed to extend the MDE to cover Scottish waters, allowing all developers working on the UK Continental Shelf to access what is planned to be a streamlined, comprehensive dataset.
This should assist a faster roll-out of offshore renewable energy technologies while also protecting the biodiversity of the marine environment.
Crown Estate Scotland has appointed ABPmer, the marine consultancy and survey company of Associated British Ports (ABP), to support data handling work for management of the Scottish marine survey data and associated documents uploaded to the MDE.
This includes observations, metadata and reports compiled and stored by or on behalf of tenants in relation to geotechnical, geophysical, bathymetric, oceanographic, meteorological, acoustic, biological, sea user, sedimentological, cultural and heritage investigations, along with modeling and monitoring.
The Crown Estate created the MDE in 2013 to store, manage and disseminate offshore survey data collected by renewable energy developers during the planning, building and operation of their offshore projects, and also output from regional environmental characterization surveys under the Marine Aggregate Levey Sustainability Fund.
ABPmer has previously provided input to the Scottish offshore wind developments Ayre, Bowdun, Salamander, MarramWind, Beatrice, Moray East and Moray West.
