COWRIE are pleased to publish the above report prepared by EMU Limited. EMU was commissioned by COWRIE to produce guidance on how best to achieve the integration of offshore geotechnical investigations and their data outputs, arising from offshore renewable energy projects, with archaeological historic environment analysis, and ensure optimum use of geotechnical data.  

This guidance is specifically concerned with offshore areas likely to be affected by renewable energy projects, including the area up to the cable landfall, which is defined for the purposes of this document as the Mean Low Water Mark. For a number of years, geotechnical data generated by offshore renewable energy projects have been archaeologically assessed as part of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process. Although there is a broad level of consistency in the approaches to archaeological assessment of geotechnical data adopted by the archaeological community, the manner in which this assessment process has developed and become accepted within EIA  requirements has meant that there are some fundamental issuesthat need to be addressed – in particular the integration into the geotechnical programme of archaeological assessment.With the major site investigations that will flow from the Round 3 offshore renewable energy programme this guidance is a response to a clear need to ensure that historic environment considerations form part of the process of planning and implementing geotechnical investigations undertaken for future offshore renewable energy projects, and that data and samples from these investigations are available for archaeological assessment.  

The aim of this document is to provide best practice options in relation to the integration of archaeology with offshore developmentled geotechnical investigations. This will assist offshore renewable energy developers, geotechnical, archaeological and environmental consultancies and contractors, industry regulators and other authorities, and national and local historic environment curators in managing the marine historic environment during the EIA process.  

The full report can be downloaded here.