Wildlife and Wind Farms - Conflicts and Solutions: Onshore: Monitoring and Mitigation (Conservation Handbooks, Band 2) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1784271233 ISBN 13: 9781784271237

Verlag: Pelagic Publishing - IPSUK, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Wind farms are an essential component of global renewable energy policy and the action to limit the effects of climate change. There is, however, considerable concern over the impacts of wind farms on wildlife, leading to a wide range of research and monitoring studies, a growing body of literature and several international conferences on the topic.

This unique multi-volume work provides a comprehensive overview of the interactions between wind farms and wildlife.

Volume 2 provides a state-of-the-science guide to monitoring and mitigation to minimise or even eliminate impacts on wildlife from wind farms. The survey and monitoring section includes detailed chapters on birds and bats followed by chapters on modelling of collision risk and populations and the statistical principles of fatality monitoring. The following mitigation section comprises chapters on spatial planning and effective mitigation strategies for bats, birds and raptors including through repowering. A synopsis of international best planning and practice concludes the volume.

The authors have been carefully selected from across the globe from the large number of academics, consultants and practitioners now engaged in wind farm studies, for their influential contribution to the science. Edited by Martin Perrow and with contributions by over 30 leading researchers including: Ed Arnett, Cris Hein, Manuela Huso, Johann Köppel, Roel May, Ian Smales & Shawn Smallwood. The authors represent a wide range of organisations and institutions including Bat Conservation International, Birdwatch Ireland, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Spanish Council for Scientific Research, Swiss Ornithological Institute, Technische Universität Berlin and US Geological Survey as well as several leading consultancies.

Each chapter includes informative figures, tables, photographs and detailed case studies. Several of the latter are produced stand-alone from invited additional authors to ensure geographic spread and to showcase exciting new research.

This book is designed for practitioners, researchers, managers and for a range of students in higher education, particularly those involved with environmental, ecological, conservation, impact assessment and climate change studies.

Other volumes:
Volume 1: Onshore: Potential Effects (978-1-78427-119-0)
Volume 3: Offshore: Potential Effects (978-1-78427-127-5)
Volume 4: Offshore: Monitoring and Mitigation (978-1-78427-131-2)

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Edited by Martin Perrow

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Wildlife and Wind Farms, Conflicts and Solutions Volume 2

Onshore: Monitoring and Mitigation

By Martin R. Perrow

Pelagic Publishing

Copyright © 2017 Pelagic Publishing
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78427-123-7

Contents

Contributors, vi, 
Preface, ix, 
1 Monitoring birds K. Shawn Smallwood, 1, 
2 Monitoring bats Cris D. Hein, 31, 
3 Modelling collision risk and populations Ian Smales, 58, 
4 Statistical principles of post-construction fatality monitoring Manuela Huso, Dan Dalthorp and Franzi Korner-Nievergelt, 84, 
5 Spatial planning Jenny Bright and Caoimhe Muldoon, 103, 
6 Mitigation for birds Roel May, 124, 
7 Turbine siting for raptors K. Shawn Smallwood, Lee Neher and Douglas A. Bell, 145, 
8 Mitigating bat collision Edward B. Arnett, 167, 
9 A best practice approach to future planning Victoria Gartman, Eva Schuster, Johann Köppel and Martin R. Perrow, 185, 
Index, 209, 

CHAPTER 1

Monitoring birds

K. SHAWN SMALLWOOD

In memory of Robert Anderson: a champion of the Golden Eagle.

Summary

Studies are usually performed before the development of a wind farm to determine whether the study area, or specific locations within the study area, will pose an unreasonable avian collision risk. It has long been suspected that the terrain presents an uneven collision risk by channelling bird activity, and preconstruction surveys can inform sound decisions over wind turbine layout. Post-construction surveys are also needed to measure displacement and barrier effects, improve understanding of wind turbine collision mechanisms and test the efficacy of mitigation measures. Visual scans have been favoured for obtaining use rates to be compared to use and fatality rates elsewhere and to predict fatality rates at a proposed wind farm. This chapter reviews those survey methods for wind farm assessment. It then examines use rates in North America for sources of bias and uncertainty and whether use rates are predictive. Use rates are compared from 82 wind farms, including 43 based on pre-construction surveys, 32 with post-construction surveys (21 from the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in California, USA), 7 with both pre- and post-construction surveys and 54 with accompanying fatality rate estimates. Potential biases are serious and sources of uncertainty are many, meaning that use rates are often poor predictors of fatality rates. The assumptions used to justify survey methods need testing and efforts to standardise methods need more effective direction. Use surveys can be improved and telemetry expanded, and radar, thermal imaging and behaviour surveys should be developed for predicting and minimising avian collision impacts at wind farms.

Introduction

Environmental studies, typically referred to as 'baseline studies' in North America, often precede construction of new wind farms to assess potential impacts on birds, bats and other wildlife. This process is analogous to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) adopted in Europe. Wind farms can adversely affect birds in several ways: (1) modifying or destroying habitat by the construction of wind turbine pads and access roads; (2) displacing some birds that avoid the new facilities (Leddy et al. 1999; Whitfield & Madders 2006; Pearce-Higgins et al. 2009; Garvin et al. 2011; Langston 2013); and (3) injuring and killing birds when they collide with wind turbines (Smallwood & Thelander 2004; 2005; de Lucas et al. 2007; 2008; 2012a; Smallwood 2007; 2013; Dahl et al. 2012). Less obvious impacts include collision of birds with turbine towers, birds being struck by automobiles on the access roads, electrocution of birds along electric circuit lines, on transformers or other electrical infrastructure, oiling of feathers of birds entering the nacelles, and entrapment of birds within nacelle and tower spaces. Despite the variety of wind farm impacts, most of the focus of pre-construction environmental assessments has been on the risks of collision with wind turbines.

Baseline studies typically include on-site surveys to assess utilisation as an indicator of relative abundance. Utilisation rates, also known as use rates, and usually expressed by the metric 'birds seen per unit time', are typically assessed by comparing them to use rates at other wind farms where impacts had also been estimated following post-construction fatality surveys. Surveys to estimate use rates are typically intended to predict impacts so that an informed decision can be made whether the wind farm should be developed. According to the objectives typically appearing in baseline study reports, a long-established secondary objective has often been to guide wind turbine siting, also known as 'micro-siting', to minimise collisions with flying birds [Morrison 1998; Anderson et al. 1999; California Energy Commission California Department of Fish and Game (CEC CDFG) 2007; see Chapters 16 and 17 in this volume].

An important element of baseline studies and EIAs is learning from the impacts already experienced at existing wind farms (New et al. 2015). Studying causal factors of fatalities at existing wind farms can help to predict impacts at new wind farms. It is important to learn how eagles and other birds react to wind turbines (Osborn et al. 1998; Leddy et al. 1999; Hoover & Morrison 2005; Smallwood et al. 2009a; 2009c; May et al. 2010; Dahl et al. 2013; Hull & Muir 2013; Kitano & Shiraki 2013). Also needed are more accurate fatality rate estimates for comparison with predictor variables such as use rates, so that investigators can develop predictive tools and formulate mitigation strategies.

The prediction of wind turbine impacts benefits from knowing the sensitivity of local species to wind energy development, where sensitivity links to the conservation importance or relative rarity of the species (Percival 2007; Desholm 2009). It also benefits from understanding the collision susceptibility of bird species due to flight behaviours, relative abundance and reactions to wind turbines. It benefits further from understanding vulnerability to collisions posed by the planned arrangement and design of wind turbines, including the wind farm's size (rated capacity), spatial extent, tower heights, rotor diameters, rotational speed, inter-turbine spacing and locations of turbines on the landscape. That is, susceptibility is a species' predisposition to being harmed by wind turbines due to morphology, ecology and environmental perception, whereas vulnerability is the likelihood of individuals being harmed once wind turbines are installed (Smallwood & Thelander 2004; 2005).

Understanding susceptibility and vulnerability has been hampered by five major problems. First, the distinction between susceptibility and vulnerability can be muddled by changes in behaviour or relative abundance caused by wind turbine installations. Patterns of behaviour and abundance seen before construction may not resemble the patterns seen after construction, or they may differ in small but significant ways. Experimental designs and more thorough investigations are needed to discern how and to what degree susceptibility translates to vulnerability following a wind farm development (Dahl et al. 2012). Secondly, comparing observational studies among wind farms by opportunity rather than by sampling design can lead to pseudoreplication (Huso & Dalthorp 2014). Thirdly, European studies found poor prediction of fatality rates based on pre-construction...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Pelagic Publishing - IPSUK
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1784271233
• ISBN 13: 9781784271237
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 2
• Anzahl der Seiten: 220
• Herausgeber: Perrow Martin
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar