There is a global need for low carbon energy, and marine renewable energy could make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation of climate change, as well as providing a high-technology industry. Marine renewable energy includes offshore wind, wave, tidal range (lagoons and barrages), and tidal-stream energy. Understanding the environment these marine renewable energy devices are likely to operate in is essential when designing efficient and resilient devices; furthermore, accurately charactering the resource, and likely impacts, is essential for the development of the marine renewable energy industry. This session is designed to share information on new research techniques and methods to better understand the resource, and interactions between energy extraction, the resource, and the environment. We welcome contributions on resource characterization, design considerations (e.g. extreme and fatigue loadings), and environmental impacts, at all timescales (ranging from turbulence to decadal) and all spatial scales (from device and array scales to shelf sea scales); including mapping tools, numerical modelling approaches, and observations. The session will also include studies of impacts, from physical and biological, to societal interactions (e.g. effects to tourism). These impacts include biological interactions with the resource and with the device. Research areas are envisaged to include but not restricted to: modelling and quantification of the interaction of the device to the marine environment (e.g. changes in hydrodynamics) as well as on the biology directly; ecological study designs and methods; new technologies for quantification; management of space; collision; noise; habitat change; community change for all trophic levels interaction.