Health Effects Related to Wind Turbine Sound, Including Low-Frequency Sound and Infrasound

Kamp, Irene van; Berg, Frits van den

doi:10.1007/s40857-017-0115-6

Cited by 72 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 86 publications

(194 reference statements)

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“…This could be a consequence of sight and sound from wind turbines disturbing the females in the weeks around parturition. Sound from wind turbines consists of both high-and low-frequency sound, and the latter may carry over longer distances (van Kamp & van den Berg, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Humans may recognize sound from wind turbines at 1,500 m (Maffei et al, 2015), and depending on sensitivity, it can be experienced as disturbing at 1,000 m or more (van Kamp & van den Berg, 2017;Pierpont, 2009). Reindeer hearing range, tested in a laboratory environment, is similar to human hearing range (Flydal, Hermansen, Enger, & Reimers, 2001); however, we suspect that TA B L E 3 Estimates of resource selection function models of the second-order scale, that is, selection home range, for female reindeer in and around the wind farm sites before (2008-2009) and during construction (2010-2011), and during operation (2015-2016) Notes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Out of sight of wind turbines—Reindeer response to wind farms in operation

Skarin

Sandström

Alam

2018

Ecology and Evolution

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To meet the expanding land use required for wind energy development, a better understanding of the effects on terrestrial animals’ responses to such development is required. Using GPS‐data from 50 freely ranging female reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) in the Malå reindeer herding community, Sweden, we determined reindeer calving sites and estimated reindeer habitat selection using resource selection functions (RSF). RSFs were estimated at both second‐ (selection of home range) and third‐order (selection within home range) scale in relation to environmental variables, wind farm (WF) development phase (before construction, construction, and operation), distance to the WFs and at the second‐order scale whether the wind turbines were in or out of sight of the reindeer. We found that the distance between reindeer calving site and WFs increased during the operation phase, compared to before construction. At both scales of selection, we found a significant decrease in habitat selection of areas in proximity of the WFs, in the same comparison. The results also revealed a shift in home range selection away from habitats where wind turbines became visible toward habitats where the wind turbines were obscured by topography (increase in use by 79% at 5 km). We interpret the reindeer shift in home range selection as an effect of the wind turbines per se. Using topography and land cover information together with the positions of wind turbines could therefore help identify sensitive habitats for reindeer and improve the planning and placement of WFs. In addition, we found that operation phase of these WFs had a stronger adverse impact on reindeer habitat selection than the construction phase. Thus, the continuous running of the wind turbines making a sound both day and night seemed to have disturbed the reindeer more than the sudden sounds and increased human activity during construction work.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Out of sight of wind turbines—Reindeer response to wind farms in operation

Skarin

Sandström

Alam

2018

Ecology and Evolution

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“…There continues to be disagreement among researchers as well as among the general public regarding whether or not wind farms are directly and/or indirectly responsible for adverse health effects [127][128][129][130]. However, it seems that wind farm noise is possibly more easily perceived and, compared with noise from other community sources such as traffic noise, railway noise and aircraft noise, wind farm noise is more annoying [122,[131][132][133]. Annoyance levels are also increased as a result of AM of the noise at the blade pass frequency (BPF), the low-frequency bias of the spectrum [126,134], the existence of tones and, possibly, infrasound.…”

Section: Human Response To Wind Farm Noisementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several studies in the past have attempted to evaluate the effect of wind farm infrasound on people [116,131,133]. Although these studies have not found that people can perceive the existence of infrasound at the levels typically produced by a wind farm, the studies have a few serious drawbacks, which make the results questionable and point to the need for more work to be undertaken before the question of whether wind farm infrasound can lead to adverse health effects can be answered definitively.…”

Section: Infrasoundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Anecdotal evidence would suggest that people living less than 5 km from the nearest turbine in a wind farm can suffer a number of symptoms, including tachycardia (raised heartbeat rate), raised blood pressure, activation of the startle reflex and a feeling of fullness in their hearing mechanism. However, none of the studies undertaken thus far have directly linked wind farm noise with any adverse health effects [125,133,161]. This is possibly a result of several factors as follows.…”

Section: Adverse Health Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Recent Advances in Wind Turbine Noise Research

Hansen

2020

Acoustics

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This review is focussed on large-scale, horizontal-axis upwind turbines. Vertical-axis turbines are not considered here as they are not sufficiently efficient to be deployed in the commercial generation of electricity. Recent developments in horizontal-axis wind turbine noise research are summarised and topics that are pertinent to the problem, but are yet to be investigated, are explored and suggestions for future research are offered. The major portion of recent and current research on wind turbine noise generation, propagation and its effects on people and animals is being undertaken by groups in Europe, UK, USA, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Considerable progress has been made in understanding wind turbine noise generation and propagation as well as the effect of wind farm noise on people, birds and animals. However, much remains to be done to answer many of the questions for which answers are still uncertain. In addition to community concerns about the effect of wind farm noise on people and how best to regulate wind farm noise and check installed wind farms for compliance, there is considerable interest from turbine manufacturers in developing quieter rotors, with the intention of allowing wind farm installations to be closer to populated areas. The purpose of this paper is to summarise recent and current wind farm noise research work and the research questions that remain to be addressed or are in the process of being addressed. Topics that are the subject of on-going research are discussed briefly and references to recent and current work are included.

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