Case Studies

Harbour porpoise responses to unabated impact piling of monopile foundations at the Dogger Bank C offshore wind farm

This report cited as:

Matei M., Klementisová K., Chudzinska M., Marwood E.M., Haber I., Gregory E., Simmons S. and Brown A. (2026). Harbour porpoise responses to unabated impact piling of monopile foundations at the Dogger Bank C offshore wind farm. Report to Dogger Bank Wind Farm Limited. Report number: SMRUC-DBC-2025-029.

Link to complete report.

Summary

This Final Report represents the primary output of the Dogger Bank C harbour porpoise passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) project, which was completed by SMRU Consulting and collaborators under contract to Dogger Bank Wind Farm.

This project aimed to build on existing studies to assess porpoise responses to unabated piling of monopile foundations at the Dogger Bank C (DBC) offshore wind farm, adjacent to the Southern North Sea Special Area of Conservation (SAC) for harbour porpoise. Specifically, this study aimed to use a similar methodology to studies undertaken in the Moray Firth, Scotland, in order to compare the observed magnitude of porpoise responses to unabated piling across the two locations. This was achieved by deploying an array of 27 PAM moorings around DBC, across an area up to 55 km from piling locations. The probability of porpoises responding to impact piling was modelled as a function of distance from the piling location and other covariates, and the spatial extend of the response was quantified as an effective deterrence range (EDR). The report presents the EDR estimated at DBC and compares it to findings from unabated piling at other offshore wind farms in the North Sea, in addition to EDRs as recommended by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee.