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Man has been using the sea in manifold ways for many centuries. This report considers human activities in the North Sea which might have an impact on, or themselves be affected by, further oil and gas developments in the SEA2 areas.

The activities include shipping, energy (both existing oil and gas developments and renewable energy), telecommunications, military activities, waste disposal, dredging and aggregate extraction, marine archaeological sites and wrecks.

Commercial fishing is the subject of a separate report.

Some of the human activities cited above are largely confined to coastal regions, inshore of the SEA2 areas under consideration, for example waste disposal sites and sites for offshore wind power development.

Other activities overlap the SEA2 areas, for example shipping and telecommunications cables. In the southern North Sea shipping traffic is considerably busier than in the central and northern North Sea.

The future of the offshore oil and gas industry is also reviewed. It is now a mature industry and, while new installations are being established in some locations, the decommissioning of other installations is already in progress elsewhere.

After some three decades of operations in the North Sea, about half of the recoverable oil and gas has been produced.

The new fields being discovered are considerably smaller than those discovered in the 1970s.

This report was produced by Cordah Ltd, a multi-disciplinary environmental management consultancy.

This report is a synthesis of information on human activities which might have an impact on, or themselves be affected by, further oil and gas developments in the SEA3 area. The activities include shipping, energy (both existing oil and gas developments and renewable energy), telecommunications, military activities, waste disposal, dredging and aggregate extraction, marine archaeological sites and wrecks.

The SEA3 area hosts a wide variety of different users. Some have been there for centuries, others are more recent arrivals. Among the older industries and activities are fisheries, ports and shipping, military activities and sea bathing. The offshore oil and gas industry has developed into a major player in the North Sea since the late 1960s, with considerable infrastructure of pipelines and coastal gas terminals in the SEA3 area. The number of submarine telecommunication cables across the North Sea has grown enormously in the past ten years, with the advent of the fibre optic cable and the growth of the Internet and e-commerce. The next twenty years may see considerable development of offshore wind farms in the SEA3 area.

This report summarises sites which are protected for reasons other than nature conservation. They include sites of geological importance, archaeological importance, sites of designated water quality for bathing, and areas of bivalve shellfish production.

Sites of geological importance include Geological Conservation Review sites (GCRs), geological Special Sites of Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Regionally Important Geological and Geomorphological sites (RIGS).

Sites of archaeological importance include wrecks and scheduled monuments. A large number of wrecks exist in the SEA3 area, most uncharted. The majority of wrecks are found in coastal waters. Important historic wrecks in UK waters are protected under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973.

Water samples are regularly taken from numerous beaches along the east coast for physical, chemical and microbiological analysis. Bathing beaches are classified according to national and European standards for quality.

In the UK, shellfish for human consumption must be harvested from designated production areas.

This report is a synthesis of information on human activities which might have an impact on, or themselves be affected by, further oil and gas developments in the SEA4 area. The activities include fishing, mariculture, shipping, energy (both existing oil and gas developments and renewable energy), telecommunications, military activities, waste disposal, dredging and aggregate extraction, tourism, coastal and marine archaeological sites. 

The SEA4 area hosts a wide variety of different users. Some have been there for centuries, others are more recent arrivals. Among the older industries and activities are fisheries, ports and shipping and military activities; the oil and gas industry and mariculture are newer arrivals. Orkney and Shetland have provided major infrastructure for the North Sea oil and gas industry since the 1970s, and there have been producing oil fields to the west of Shetland since 1997. Finfish and shellfish farming are important industries in the coastal regions of the SEA4 area.

The SEA 5 area covers parts of the central and northern North Sea to the east of the Scottish mainland, Orkney and Shetland. The area supports different users and activities, many of which are focussed in particular coastal and marine areas.

The North Sea oil and gas industry has been particularly important in shaping the coastal development of the area over the last 30 years both in terms of industrial development and population demographics. Major developments include the receiving terminals on Shetland and Orkney; in the Moray Firth; at St. Fergus and within the Firth of Forth, as well as the substantial industry support network centred on key locations such as Lerwick, Peterhead and Aberdeen amongst others.

In general, significant coastal development is centred upon the large firths which cut into the east coast; Inverness in the Moray Firth, Dundee on the Firth of Tay and Edinburgh and associated towns on the Firth of Forth. The importance of these areas has lead to the development of coastal fora which seek to balance the environmental and economic characteristics of these areas.

Outwith these areas much of the SEA 5 coast is rural in nature with little industrial development. The fishing industry, whilst generally in decline, remains a key industry for many small east coast fishing towns and villages as well as industry centres such as Lerwick, Peterhead and Fraserburgh. Aquaculture is an important industry in Orkney and Shetland, the coasts of which abut SEA 4 and SEA 5, however, this industry is relatively unimportant in the rest of the SEA 5 area.

This report presents an initial overview of the coastal population of the SEA 5 area and the industries and activities which utilise the SEA 5 area including:

• Oil and gas activity
• Commercial fishing
• Fisheries for migratory species
• Ports and shipping
• Mariculture
• Military activity
• Telecommunication cables
• Renewable energy
• Aggregate extraction
• Marine disposal
• Tourism and leisure
• Locally important activities
• Coastal and marine archaeology
• Coastal and marine management initiatives


Report prepared by Hartley Anderson Limited with Aberdeen Institute of Coastal Science and Management, University of Aberdeen.

The SEA 6 area supports different users and activities, many of which are focussed in particular coastal and marine areas. It is a mixture of sparsely populated rural areas and highly developed centres of population. The primary contributors to the national and regional economies are tourism and leisure, oil and gas, ports and shipping and locally naval defence. The renewable energy sector is growing and may provide significant local opportunities for the port and local construction industries in the future.

The report presents an overview of the coastal population of the SEA 6 area and the industries and activities using the SEA 6 area including:
• Oil and gas activity
• Ports and shipping
• Mariculture
• Military activity
• Telecommunication cables
• Renewable energy
• Aggregate extraction
• Marine disposal
• Tourism and leisure
• Locally important activities
• Coastal and marine archaeology
• Coastal and marine management initiatives

The report was prepared by L. Luddington and J. J. Moore of Coastal Assessment, Liaison & Monitoring.

This report reviews the many different sources of underwater noise, both natural and anthropogenic, that combine to provide the background noise levels in which marine organisms need to survive throughout the SEA6 region. The sources of sound combine together in a complex manner resulting in significant spatial and temporal variations in the noise field.

A map of the dominant noise sources in the Irish Sea is shown, indicating that man-made noise is the dominant source of noise over about 70% of the area. Shipping noise is likely to be dominant across large parts of the SEA6 area.

To fully characterise the ambient noise field in the SEA6 area would require multiple measurements at a large number of locations over a period of a year. However, a considerably lower cost approach would be to characterise each sound source and to use this with occurrence statistics for each source to model the ambient noise field across the region. The advantages and disadvantages of the acoustic modelling approach are discussed.

This report was prepared by QinetiQ.

SEA7 Technical Report - Other Users

The purpose of this report is to provide an initial assessment of what is termed the “Other Users” of the SEA 7 area. These other users include those significant human activities and infrastructure occurring in the marine and coastal zone, and not addressed by other SEA 7 data reports. Fisheries and maritime archaeology (wrecks) are therefore excluded.

The report summarises current activity in the area, and where possible discusses likely future trends. It also summarises the relevance of each activity to any future proposed oil and gas activity. Where appropriate, comment is made about the potential sensitivity of an “Other User” to oil and gas development, or the potential restrictions to oil and gas development presented by existing users.

This report was prepared by Richard Stocks and Jillian Hobbs of Metoc Plc.