Abstract
Rhyl Flats Offshore Wind Farm (OWF) has consent for thirty turbines to be built within an area of approximately 10km2 off the North Wales coastline between the towns of Abergele and Rhos on Sea (npower renewables, 2006). Construction is likely to begin at the site during summer 2007.
The following report details the main methodologies and findings of the 2006 Rhyl Flats OWF benthic grab survey. This survey was conducted during September 2006 by the Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies (CMACS Ltd) and has been undertaken as part of the second year of a five-year monitoring phase required as part of the FEPA licence for Rhyl Flats. The FEPA licence stipulates that grab sampling should be undertaken in order to investigate possible changes to the marine benthic communities of the area in addition such investigations must also be closely linked to possible changes to sediments.
The results presented here also consider a comparison with the findings of the previous 2005 monitoring survey. It should also be noted that on the advice of the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) two further sites have been added as part of the monitoring program (sites 28 and 29- see Figure 1) in 2006 to enable a greater coverage of the biotopes. After discussion with CCW, it was decided to use two sites which have been used as part of the neighbouring North Hoyle Wind farm for the last 5 years. These sites were present within the areas highlighted by CCW as needing further coverage and also present a series of data covering the previous 5 years from the North Hoyle monitoring survey. However, at this stage of the monitoring programme back data has only been utilised from the previous 2005 survey for analysis purposes.