Theoretical Limitations:

One of the biggest limitations of this study is that it does not take into account the environmental consequences of offshore wind farms. This mainly involves the effects on bird populations and bird migration. The main threats that wind farms (offshore and inland) pose to birds are: mortality due to collisions and the increased collision risk, population displacement (ultimately habitat loss), migration pattern changes (increased energy expenditure whilst avoiding wind farms causes populations to avoid areas near wind farms, affecting breeding/feeding), and physical habitat loss (Drewit & Langston, 2006). One study looking at 10 species suggests that population density declines due to onshore wind farms are mainly observed in the construction phase, and that there is no significant evidence suggesting that population declines post-construction (Pearce-Higgins et al., 2012). However, for offshore wind farms, it is unwise to assume the same since bird population information is not always available (Drewit & Langston, 2006).

Another major limitation is the exclusion of seabed UK continental soil data. Due to the scale of the project, there is no data available that could make the inclusion of this factor possible. As one study suggests, properties such as soil stiffness, composition, shear stress and strength are all important factors that should be taken into consideration when building the foundation for a wind turbine, as the degradation of the soil stiffness could, with time, affect stability of the foundation and turbine above (Ming Hue Le et al., 2014).

Additionally, offshore fishing as well as commercial/transport activities are not taken into consideration due to the large amount of data that would be needed for analysis of this scale. In reality, this would also have to be taken into consideration due to the social and economic effects.

Finally, this project does not consider Marine Protected Areas, offshore Special Areas of Conservation, or other sites such as these which are protected not only for their biodiversity but also geomorphological and touristic value (e.g. sand dunes); firstly because the data could not be found and secondly because activities such as offshore wind farms and others such as non-renewable energy production (oil and gas fields/wells) still occur near these areas.

Technical Limitations:

On a techical standpoint, the main issue with this project is the difference in resolution between the bathymetry raster and the final wind speed raster. This most likely caused the suitable area for potential offshore energy generation to be erroneous spatially. However, bathymetric data at a higher scale was not available and would have generalised the depth values, and wind speed modelled data at a smaller spatial scale was not available.

Another limitation might be the use of the linear transformation function for the bathymetry raster. Instead of this I could have used the fuzzy large function, after having modified the raster so that the maximum depth was -50m (using the raster calculator). The midpoint could have been the average depth achieved by modern turbine foundations in 2015 from the EWEA report.

Another possible source of error was the distance from the coast values created. This factor was the only factor created subjectively. Even though wind farms do occur at larger distances from the coast than those chosen (as can be seen on the raw offshore wind activity data), it was believed that the offshore wind farms created in the sites shown in this project would be more economically feasible possibilities due to their closeness to the shoreline.

A final technical limitation would be the constrain raster resolution. Since it was matched to equal that of the wind speed raster, certain isolated oil and gas well and field buffers were not present in the raster due to their small size.