Abstract
The rapid growth of offshore wind energy in Europe necessitates the construction of energy islands, which will put additional pressure on the marine environment. To mitigate this pressure, the implementation of nature-inclusive design for the construction of these islands is being considered. Research in coastal and offshore marine environments has demonstrated the benefits of nature-inclusive design, but these have yet to be translated into human well-being (i.e. ecosystem services). The construction of energy islands is the ideal opportunity to establish the latter, as the potential of nature-inclusive design can be evaluated for the subtidal, intertidal and supratidal zone all together. The objective of this research is to develop an integrated model to assess and predict the impact of the construction of an energy island with a nature-inclusive design on the delivery of ecosystem services. A system dynamics model will be constructed using a combination of experimental data on nature-inclusive design collected in the offshore marine environment and literature data to map the evolution and interactions among ecosystem services in the construction of a nature-inclusive designed energy island. The integration of this model in the environmental impact assessment aims to improve the procedure to take into account the creation of benefits for the environment and human well-being in addition to the negative environmental impacts.
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