This research will develop and finalize the spatial environmental assessment toolkit (SEAT) made of linked, user-friendly and open-source (freely available) numerical models and mapping tools for designing MRE array layouts that, a priori, maximize energy production and beneficial environmental change while simultaneously minimizing and supporting mitigation of undesirable change. This work supports both the continental grid market and Powering the Blue Economy (PBE) applications such as coastal resilience and disaster recovery for local communities at device spatial and energy scales (e.g. local shoreline protection, reduced coastal erosion and storm surge, beneficial sediment and habitat management, powering isolated communities, etc.). Imperative, and not found elsewhere, is that the SEAT allows MRE project developers to assess site- and technology-specific challenges unique to each deployment as well as find optimal project layouts for power generation and environmental impacts. The goal of the SEAT is to reduce project design, permitting, and monitoring costs with high quality site characterization and better, a priori, understanding of the potential environmental impacts (beneficial or potentially detrimental), while simultaneously defining array layouts that maximize energy production under given constraints. Because SEAT provides a thorough understanding of the environmental effects from MRE deployments, it helps screen (i.e. retire), or where not possible effectively mitigate, environmental risks enabling effective mitigation and efficient monitoring programs to be developed.
