Digital Aerial Surveys to support bird and marine mammal distribution and density modelling in the UK Celtic Sea area

Tender description

Wave Hub Development Services Ltd, trading as Celtic Sea Power (CSP) are a 100% subsidiary of Cornwall Council. As part of an ERDF-funded project, we require suitably competent service providers to deliver Digital Aerial Surveys (DAS) to support bird and marine mammal density and distribution modelling in the UK Celtic Sea area. The activity will support strategic considerations for Floating Offshore Wind (FLOW) in the Celtic Sea. A brief general project description is provided below: The Cornwall FLOW Accelerator (CFA) project is a collaborative project including Wave Hub Development Services Development Ltd (WHDS project lead), University of Exeter (UoE), University of Plymouth (UoP) and the Offshore Renewable Catapult (OREC). It aims to develop tools, knowledge and data which accelerate the Celtic Sea FLOW opportunity and lay significant groundwork with respect to developing pipeline at both a FLOW project and supply chain level. The project is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Celtic Sea Power (CSP) has worked with Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, the JNCC and the RSPB to determine a suitable survey methodology for the proposed DAS that can feed into a regional characterization approach for the area. CSP also have an ambition to combine data and evidence from this proposed survey with other relevant data sets from the remaining Celtic Sea area. This will maximize spatial and temporal data coverage for relevant species that can feed into both Regional and National density and distribution modelling activities. This will also enable a more strategic view to be taken of the key potential species interactions in the area, geographically relevant potential development risks and the pre-empting of additional data and evidence that may be required in the future to support the assessment of FLOW. Lot 1: 2.1 General Requirements and timeline Digital Aerial Surveys are required to provide relevant data and evidence that will be fed back into the creation of a regional bird and marine mammal density and distribution model for the target area (2.3). Key engagement with relevant stakeholders has been completed to gain agreement on the required methodology to support a regional characterisation approach. Surveys will need to be complete with final report(s) and all survey footage provided by June 2023. A fixed price is required to undertake and complete this activity For the avoidance of doubt, the contract shall be for the delivery of survey data. The contractor shall remain fully responsible for all airborne and operational activities. 2.2 Survey design requirements • The Digital Aerial Survey design will need to provide a minimum of 5% of the target area coverage. • The Transect orientation has been agreed at South East(SE)/North West (NW) with Natural England and Natural Resources Wales as it is expected to run perpendicular to likely flight lines of important populations of breeding birds (e.g. Manx shearwater) whilst also possibly intersecting environmental gradients (e.g. thermal fronts). However, we would also ask tenderers to provide supporting information to help justify this aspect of the survey design as part of any submitted tender documentation. • No buffer to the prescribed target area will be required. • The tenderer will be responsible for meeting all required permissions and consents. • Flight height data will not be required at this time. • Seasonal coverage is expected. • Processing of survey data and provision of survey report. 2.3 CSP target area Target area details have been provided with this tender in GIS shapefile format with co-ordinates and other formats available on request. A fixed budget only is available, and we therefore request that tenderers start their survey design at the eastern target area boundary between Cornwall and Wales before progressing West as budgets allow. Maximum coverage is expected for Zone A as the priority, spreading West across Zone B as budget allows. The smaller separate Zone C target area off the south coast of Cornwall and Devon should form the last priority for target areas as budget allows. The area coverage achievable in presented survey designs will form a key aspect of the tender scoring process as we seek to maximise spatial coverage to support the regional characterisation approach. Data quality will however also be critical to ensure the DAS support the creation of a valid evidence base.