The Methodology for Assessing the Impact of Offshore Wind Farms on Navigation, Based on the Automatic Identification System Historical Data

Mounting offshore renewable energy installations often involves extra risk regarding the safety of navigation, especially for areas with high traffic intensity. The decision-makers planning such projects need to anticipate and plan appropriate solutions in order to manage navigation risks. This process is referred to as “environmental impact assessment”. In what way can these threats be reduced using the available Automatic Identification System (AIS) tool? This paper presents a study of the concept for the methodology of an a posteriori vessel traffic description in the form of quantitative and qualitative characteristics created based on a large set of historical AIS data (big data). The research was oriented primarily towards the practical application and verification of the methodology used when assessing the impact of the planned Offshore Wind Farm (OWF) Baltic II on the safety of ships in Polish Marine Areas, and on the effectiveness of navigation, taking into account the existing shipping routes and customary and traffic separation systems. The research results (e.g., a significant distance of the Baltic II from the nearest customary shipping route equal to 3 Nm, a small number of vessels in its area in 2017 amounting to only 930) obtained on the basis of the annual AIS data set allowed for an unambiguous and reliable assessment of the impact of OWFs on shipping, thus confirming the suitability of the methodology for MREI spatial planning.