Environmental Impact of Offshore Wind Farms on Black Sea Bass Population in Maryland Coastal Region

Chunlei Fan¹, Kelton Clark¹, Shobha Sriharan², and Gulnihal Ozbay³

¹Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD

²Virginia State University, Petersburg, VA

³Delaware State University, Dover, DA

The number of offshore wind farms is increasing rapidly all over the world, raising some concerns on wildlife activities and livelihood and if and how such structures interfere and impact wildlife. On the other hand, it is widely accepted that offshore wind farms can serve as artificial reefs and benefit fish populations by creating shade, a surface for growth of food sources and refuge form larger predators. We developed a two-patch age-structured model to evaluate the potential benefits of a proposed wind farm on black sea bass in the Maryland coastal region and simulate population size in the wind farm patch and no wind farm patches. Results suggest that wind farm can attract fish juveniles, and increase age-specific survival, potentionally causing higher abundance around the wind farm area. In the absence of wind farm, population is increasing at a rate 1.01; in the presence of wind farm, the black seabass population shows faster growth (1.09) than the no wind farm patch population. In addition to the effects from the wind farm, water depth and water column temperature also have significant effects on population size of black sea bass in our study. These three environmental factors play important role in regulating spatial distribution of black seabass population. Overall, the proposed wind farm can act as a new type of suitable habitat, a possibly increased use of the area by black seabass population.