Poor evidence-base for assessment of windfarm impacts on birds

Abstract

Concerns about anthropogenic climate change have resulted in promotion of renewable energy sources, especially wind energy. A concern raised against widespread windfarm development is that it may negatively impact bird populations as a result of bird collision with turbines, habitat loss and disturbance. Using systematic review methodology bird abundance data were synthesized from 19 globally-distributed windfarms using meta-analysis. The effects of bird taxon, turbine number, power, location, latitude, habitat type, size of area, time since operation, migratory status of the species and quality of evidence were analysed using meta-regression. Although the synthesized data suggest a significant negative impact of windfarms on bird abundance, there is considerable variation in the impact of individual windfarm sites on individual bird species, and it is unclear if the negative impact is a decline in population abundance or a decline in use owing to avoidance. Anseriformes experienced greater declines in abundance than other taxa, followed by Charadriiformes, Falconiformes and Accipitriformes, and Passeriformes. Time since windfarms commenced operation also had a significant impact on bird abundance, with longer operating times resulting in greater declines in abundance than short operating times. Other variables, including turbine number and turbine power either had very weak but statistically significant effects or did not have a significant effect on bird abundance. Windfarms may have significant biological impacts, especially over longer time scales, but the evidence-base is poor, with many studies being methodologically weak, and more long-term impact assessments are required. There is clear evidence that Anseriformes (wildfowl) and Charadriiformes (waders) experience declines in abundance, suggesting that a precautionary approach should be adopted to windfarm development near aggregations of these taxa in offshore and coastal locations. The impact of windfarm developments on bird populations must also be viewed in the context of the possible impact of climate change in the absence of windfarms.

A Systematic Review of Water Vulnerability Assessment Tools

“…The approach is gaining popularity in the environmental field (e.g., Pullin and Stewart 2006;Stewart et al 2007;Ford and Pearce 2010). Systematic reviews are well suited to situations where a subject has been the focus of 1 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada project #865-2008-0065 considerable research, and where an 'overall picture' is deemed to be useful for orienting future research, policy and methods (Petticrew and Roberts 2006).…”

Canadian Estimate of Bird Mortality Due to Collisions and Direct Habitat Loss Associated with Wind Turbine Developments

“…Results from mortality studies at various sites in the United States and Europe generally suggest that annual bird collisions range from 0 to over 30 collisions per turbine, although data collection protocols, experimental design, and analysis methods varied substantially among wind farms, making many studies difficult to compare (Kuvlesky et al 2007, Sterner et al 2007, Stewart et al 2007, Ferrer et al 2012. Erickson et al (2001) estimated 33,000 birds killed per year based on 15,000 turbines in the United States for an average of 2.1 birds/turbine/year.…”

Effects of Renewable Energy Production and Infrastructure on Wildlife

“…European countries such as Spain and Belgium also have reported hundreds of birds killed by turbines (Lowther 1998 ;Everaert and Stienen 2007 ). Thus, much wind farm-wildlife research has been devoted to investigating how wind farm developments impact bird populations (e.g., Langston and Pullan 2003 ;Baerwald et al 2008 ;Garvin et al 2011 ), in particular collision rates of birds with turbines as well as factors infl uencing interspecifi c and local variability (reviewed in Langston 2006 , 2008 ;Kuvlesky et al 2007 ;Stewart et al 2007 ;Loss et al 2013 ;Marqués et al 2014 ). These studies show that the effects of wind farms on birds are highly variable (while most wind turbines actually kill none or very few individuals, some turbines kill many), and depend on a wide range of factors, including the development type, the topography of the surrounding land, the habitats affected and the number and species of birds present (Barrios and Rodriguez 2004 ).…”