Draft Fisheries Assessment – Anton Dohrn Seamount SAC: Fisheries management measures within Scottish Offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

4. Part C Assessment – In Combination Assessment

4.1 In-combination assessment overview

This section assess the in-combination provision within under Article 6(3) of Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora (the Habitats Directive) to take account of the cumulative impacts, which may occur over space and time, in relation to plans or projects which are completed, approved but uncompleted, or proposed. Activities assessed in this section include the following:

• Fishing activity/pressure combinations which were excluded in Part A of this assessment as having no likely significant impact;
• Fishing interactions assessed in Part B but not resulting in adverse effects; and
• Plans and projects occurring within Anton Dohrn SAC that are not related to fishing.

Fishing activities including demersal trawls have been identified in Part B as requiring management to avoid adverse effects of site integrity and will therefore not be considered in Part C.

At present, as there are no other demersal fishing activities that are known to take place within Anton Dohrn Seamount SAC between the assessment period of 2015-2019. There are therefore no further fishing activities to take further for assessment in combination with other plans or projects (Figure 3).

4.2 Other offshore region activities screening

To determine plans and projects not related to fishing activities to be included within this part of the assessment, a distance of 5 km was selected as suitable to capture any potential source receptor pathways that could impact the site in combination with effects of the fishing activities assessed. A 5 km buffer was therefore applied to the site boundary to identify relevant plans and projects.

Plans and projects not related to fishing activities were identified using the Scottish Government’s marine mapping tool. The NatureScot and JNCC Conservation Objectives and Advice on Operations, and other resources on the JNCC Site Information Centre for Solan Bank Reef SAC, were also screened for activities occurring in the site that should be considered in the in-combination assessment.

The map to display offshore region activities (see Figure 3) was derived from OceanWise’s Marine Themes Vector data (July 2023 version), Crown Estate Scotland leases (September 2023 version), Kingfisher Information Services Offshore Renewable Cable Awareness (KIS-ORCA, as of December 2023 held under licence) and North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA, as of December 2023, data held under Oil and Gas Authority open licence). The Marine Themes “Industrial” was filtered to show offshore region platforms, wellheads, piles, turbines, cables, and pipelines. Features marked as “not in use”, “not present”, “decommissioned”, or “removed” were excluded. The “Administrative” data were filtered to only show military exercise areas which included danger areas.

4.3 Other offshore region activities occurring with Anton Dohrn Reef SAC

The screening exercise using the Scottish Government’s marine mapping tool did not identify any current cables, pipelines, turbines or piles, wellheads, or offshore region platforms within the site (Figure 3).

A surface military danger area overlaps the full site boundary and a military submarine exercise area overlaps the south-east area of the site. There is a subsea telecommunications cable crossing within 5 km of the site boundary to the east of the site.

The Anton Dohrn Seamont SAC Selection Assessment Document (2012) confirmed that the area is currently not exploited for oil and gas, so no pipelines or installations occur at the site. The JNCC Site information Centre for Anton Dohrn Seamount SAC indicated that there is a radio calling point present in the site boundary and parts of the site may be crossed by ships.

4.4 Potential pressures exerted by fishing and other plans or projects

The subsea telecommunications cable crossing within 5km of the site boundary to the east of the site, subsequently there is no spatial overlap with or proximity to the reef feature within the site and is not considered capable of impacting the reef feature within the site

The military danger areas that overlap with the site are a surface danger area and a submarine exercise area which are not considered able to impact the seafloor reef feature.

4.5 Significance of effects/impacts to protected features

Considering the absence of likely significant effects, the assessment did not identify any in-combination activities that could adversely affect the site integrity of Anton Dohrn Seamount SAC.

4.6 Part C Conclusion

Scottish Ministers conclude that by implementing measures for demersal trawl there are no in-combination effects with other relevant activities which are not compatible with the conservation objectives of the site and will not adversely affect the site integrity of Anton Dohrn Seamount SAC.