Offshore wind farms (OWF) are central to Europe’s renewable energy future. Yet, as thousands of new turbines are planned, uncertainties remain about how structured-induced seabed erosion, known as scour, develops and how it may affect marine ecosystems. A new study by researchers from Leibniz University Hannover (LUH) and the Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute (BAW) analysed high-resolution, freely available in-situ data from bathymetric surveys of 460 monopiles across nine British OWFs. This analysis of an unprecedented amount of in-situ data provides valuable insights into the role and significance of various physical drivers leading to scour around monopiles, establishing a better understanding for more reliable predictions of potential environmental impacts.
The analysis shows that scour varies strongly between and within OWF. Key drivers include the relative water depth, the relative grain size, the Keulegan–Carpenter number as a key non-dimensional measure of wave–current interaction, and the sediment mobility parameter. In particular, shallow waters with fine to medium sediments are most prone to structure-induced erosion. Besides highlighting these key drivers of scour, the study also illustrates local site-specific effects, demonstrating why a one-size-fits-all approach to scour prediction is physically inappropriate and technically ineffective.
This research marks a key step towards integrating scour dynamics into broader assessments of offshore wind farm impacts. It provides a foundation for future work on sediment transport and ecosystem responses – directly supporting the goals of the German research programme sustainMare.
The study was recently published in Wind Energy Science:
Garcia, K., Jordan, C., Melling, G., Schendel, A., Welzel, M., and Schlurmann, T.: Scour variability across offshore wind farms (OWFs): identifying site-specific scour drivers as a step towards assessing potential impacts on the marine environment, Wind Energy Sci., 10, 2189–2216, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-2189-2025, 2025.
