Anticipated coastal impacts: What water-users think of marine renewables and why

Beaumont, Emily ORCID: 0000-0002-7318-2373, Stokes, Christopher, Russell, Paul and Greaves, Deborah (2014) Anticipated coastal impacts: What water-users think of marine renewables and why. Ocean and Coastal Management, 99. pp. 36-71. doi:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2014.04.003

Text (Peer Reviewed Version) 9334 Christopher Stokes, Emily Beaumont, Paul Russell, Deborah Greaves. (2014) Anticipated-coastal-impacts-what-water-users-think-of-marine-renewables-and-why.pdf - Draft Version Restricted to Repository staff only Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0. Download (427kB)

Abstract

This article explores the physical coastal impacts that are anticipated by coastal water-users in the lee of the Wave Hub marine renewables test facility (Cornwall, UK). In depth, semi-structured interviews were analysed using a grounded theory approach in order to explore contemporary anticipations as well as the process of opinion formation that has occurred for participants. The interviews focused on anticipated impacts to inshore wave conditions, beach sedimentation, rip current formation and beach safety. The results indicate that participants constructed their anticipations by weighing their perceptions of the technology against their perceptions of the coastal environment. A conceptual model is presented which allows the degree of anticipated coastal impact to be predicted, by categorizing technologies and coastal environments in terms of their perceived properties. The model indicates that wave energy deployments which are perceived to be large scale, close to shore, wide, stationary, or extracting high percentages of energy are likely to invoke anticipations of significant or severe coastal impacts. Conversely, those which are perceived to be small scale, far from shore, narrow, moving, or extracting low percentages of wave energy are more likely to invoke anticipations of insignificant or no coastal impact. Interestingly, the level of anticipated impact was most often based on device properties such as form or siting, and was rarely influenced by device extraction efficiency. The implications for future marine renewables deployments are discussed.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Coastal Impacts; Wave Energy; Marine Renewables; Water-users; Grounded Theory
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > HF5001 Business
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Business, Computing and Social Sciences
Research Priority Areas:	Applied Business & Technology
Depositing User:	Kate Greenaway
Date Deposited:	08 Feb 2021 09:38
Last Modified:	05 Aug 2023 12:03
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/9334

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