Abstract
Ensuring food security is a vital challenge. To meet food and, especially, protein demand in the next few decades, the aquaculture industry needs to expand. This could be achieved by expanding marine aquaculture at sea. Moving aquaculture plots further offshore has gained interest due to its increased space availability and more stable conditions compared to coastal areas, while also mitigating the effects of climate change extremes inshore. Spatial multi-criteria evaluation allowed for the identification of regions in offshore European waters that, under present-day conditions, were both feasible and suitable for mussel cultivation (Mytilus edulis L.). Future climate models were also used and showed a latitudinal trend, making Northern European waters more suitable in the future, while the Southern part of Europe became too warm. However, the future impact of extreme events, such as marine heatwaves, is difficult to predict. In addition, the study identified offshore wind farms with potential for co-location with mussel cultivation, which could help concentrate human uses at sea and reduce the extent of marine areas subject to anthropogenic pressure. With the offshore wind industry expanding rapidly in the future, even more co-location options will become possible.
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Data availability
The datasets analysed and generated during this study, as well as the codes developed, are available in the GitHub repository: https://github.com/EnoLec/smce_mussel_osw_europe.
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Acknowledgements
This work was conducted under the Aura CDT programme, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), grant number EP/S023763/1 and project reference 2610351, and the project eSWEETS: Enabling Sustainable Wind Energy Expansion in Seasonable Seas, NERC, grant number NE/X004953/1. This research was sponsored by Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (OREC). The work was made possible due to the financial assistance of the organisation and the technical expertise offered by Marie Kelly (OREC).
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EML developed the study, collected, processed and analysed the data, and was responsible for the first draft of the manuscript. PG, KM, and RMF were involved in the development of the method, supervised, and validated the results. EC was involved in the development of the method. All authors were involved in the conception of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Lecordier, E.M., Gernez, P., Mazik, K. et al. Identifying suitable mussel cultivation sites in European offshore waters—an assessment for co-location with the wind industry. npj Ocean Sustain (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-026-00187-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-026-00187-0
