where this industry appears. The results presented by aquaculture, seabed, logistics
and leisure show more optimistic view in the related projects, but this optimistic
analysis does not match with the real investments developed in those sectors in
offshore areas. According to the results, the main sources of uncertainty about
the viability of the projects are coming from the lack of precise knowledge on the
operational conditions of the technology under untested conditions and from the
intrinsic volatility of revenues to be obtained in the future with uncertainty in market
conditions, environmental pressures and policy regulating measures. Finally, it is
assumed that the initially recognized lack of maturity is still heavily restricting for
further developments in offshore activities, and for now, it is unclear whether the
shared approach creates expectations that will lead to a successful strategy.
In Chap. 5 an interdisciplinary web-based tool for applying socio-economic
assessment in MERMAID project was described. This tool was part of the framework for assessing the socio-economic impact of MUOPs and, as such, utilized web
and data analytics state-of-the-art technologies in order to provide researchers with a
framework for evaluating feasibility and potential of each MUOP’s proposed design
and location. The assessment tool extends the standard process of financial analysis
into an assessment that incorporates socio-economic, legal and technological environmental parameters. The tool provides the user with questionnaires for technical
and legal feasibility assessment, as well as environmental impact assessment. It also
materializes a streamlined robust methodology for the researchers and potential
decision-makers.
The main results of the chapter are the following: (a) a data versioning system
could be added into the tool, so as a researcher to be able to reproduce the analysis
and compare the results; (b) the tool could potentially give the user the ability to
preprocess raw climate data (wind, wave, currents, etc.) from existing repositories
and shape them in the appropriate input format for the tool using graphical tools that
would allow for a more sophisticated model and the expansion of the tool in other
domains such as spatial analysis; (c) the enhanced tool could include a spatial data
planning component that would use relevant project data (climate, engineering,
ecological, socio-economic) to present the spatial alternatives, creating a suitability
map; (d) the enhanced tool could visualize the outputs of sensitivity analysis; and
finally (e) the described tool could perform manually cross validation to refine
parameter selection for the simulation. From a general point of view, MERMAID’s
assessment tool provided researchers with an intuitive way to evaluate multiple
scenarios that would be hard and time-consuming to assess manually. It managed
to successfully capture a lot of information carefully chosen after multiple interactions with the stakeholders of the project MERMAID. This is a unique challenge
given the multidisciplinary nature of the project, as well as the complexity introduced by the concurrent evaluation of different geographical sites.
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P. Koundouri and L. Papadaki
and leisure show more optimistic view in the related projects, but this optimistic
analysis does not match with the real investments developed in those sectors in
offshore areas. According to the results, the main sources of uncertainty about
the viability of the projects are coming from the lack of precise knowledge on the
operational conditions of the technology under untested conditions and from the
intrinsic volatility of revenues to be obtained in the future with uncertainty in market
conditions, environmental pressures and policy regulating measures. Finally, it is
assumed that the initially recognized lack of maturity is still heavily restricting for
further developments in offshore activities, and for now, it is unclear whether the
shared approach creates expectations that will lead to a successful strategy.
In Chap. 5 an interdisciplinary web-based tool for applying socio-economic
assessment in MERMAID project was described. This tool was part of the framework for assessing the socio-economic impact of MUOPs and, as such, utilized web
and data analytics state-of-the-art technologies in order to provide researchers with a
framework for evaluating feasibility and potential of each MUOP’s proposed design
and location. The assessment tool extends the standard process of financial analysis
into an assessment that incorporates socio-economic, legal and technological environmental parameters. The tool provides the user with questionnaires for technical
and legal feasibility assessment, as well as environmental impact assessment. It also
materializes a streamlined robust methodology for the researchers and potential
decision-makers.
The main results of the chapter are the following: (a) a data versioning system
could be added into the tool, so as a researcher to be able to reproduce the analysis
and compare the results; (b) the tool could potentially give the user the ability to
preprocess raw climate data (wind, wave, currents, etc.) from existing repositories
and shape them in the appropriate input format for the tool using graphical tools that
would allow for a more sophisticated model and the expansion of the tool in other
domains such as spatial analysis; (c) the enhanced tool could include a spatial data
planning component that would use relevant project data (climate, engineering,
ecological, socio-economic) to present the spatial alternatives, creating a suitability
map; (d) the enhanced tool could visualize the outputs of sensitivity analysis; and
finally (e) the described tool could perform manually cross validation to refine
parameter selection for the simulation. From a general point of view, MERMAID’s
assessment tool provided researchers with an intuitive way to evaluate multiple
scenarios that would be hard and time-consuming to assess manually. It managed
to successfully capture a lot of information carefully chosen after multiple interactions with the stakeholders of the project MERMAID. This is a unique challenge
given the multidisciplinary nature of the project, as well as the complexity introduced by the concurrent evaluation of different geographical sites.
248
P. Koundouri and L. Papadaki