The impact of onshore wind farms on ecological corridors in Ningbo, China

Abstract

Under the background of the energy transition, the ecosystems are threatened by the rapid expansion of renewable power plants, especially wind turbines with enormous sizes. While the potential ecological influence near wind farms has not been extensively studied. In the process of wind farm site selection, there is no uniform methodology to assess the ecological impact on the local ecosystem. This paper proposed a research framework to quantify the impacts on ecological corridors under the influence of wind farms. Taking five wind farms in Ningbo Peninsula as cases, the geographical data from Landsat 8, NDVI, DEM, and wind turbine data from Vortex were selected from 2010 to 2020. The ecological sources and resistance surfaces were analyzed with and without wind farms under least-cost distance and least-cost path models. The results revealed that wind farms could increase the migration resistance that prevents the species' ecological corridors, and change the number and routes of main ecological corridors. Additionally, the cumulative resistance value positively correlated with the distance between ecological sources. Through GIS spatial quantification assessment, this paper helps balance wind energy development and regional ecological security and provides scientific and orderly planning suggestions for the healthy development of the regional ecological network.

Evolution of long-term ecological security pattern of island city and its influencing factors—a case study in Pingtan Island

“…Wind power, being part of the energy infrastructure, lacks ecological functionality and causes significant anthropogenic disturbances. As a point or linear element, wind power projects fragment habitat patches into isolated units, degrading the quality and landscape structure of ecological source areas, and thus harming the integrity of the ecosystem (Guan, 2023). Research has shown that wind power projects impede ecological processes such as species habitation, migration, and dispersion.…”

Localized Eco-Climatic Impacts of Onshore Wind Farms: A Review

“…In addition, the maintenance roads divide the vegetation community into numerous patches, resulting in increased patch density, shape complexity, and fragmentation of the vegetation community, which lead to increased landscape pattern indices, reduced landscape dominance, increased ecosystem vulnerability, and reduced ecosystem stability (Zhang et al, 2016; Diffendorfer et al, 2019). The cutting of the localized landscape pattern will also cause a significant increase in migratory resistance along the ecological corridors of a species, which in turn will lead to an increase in the length of the regional ecological corridors and reductions in corridor accessibility and landscape connectivity (Roscioni et al, 2014; Guo et al, 2020; Guan, 2023).…”

Wind farm site selection using GIS-based multicriteria analysis with Life cycle assessment integration

“…Wind turbines are known as cost-effective energy conversion systems thanks to corresponding technological developments in recent years (Karki and Billinton 2004;Höfer et al 2016;Pryor and Barthelmie 2021;Guan 2023;Vallejo Díaz et al 2023). This situation causes an increase in the interest in wind turbine facilities.…”

“…slope and height) and social (e.g. visual impact, noise pollution) criteria (Harding et al 2008;Katsaprakakis 2012;Kokologos et al 2014;Tabassum et al 2014;Knopper et al 2014;Freiberg et al 2019;Manchado et al 2019;Xu et al 2021;Benti et al 2023;Guan 2023). In other words, rather than placing the wind turbines in the windiest locations constantly, it may be more crucial to choose the location based on a variety of economic, ecological, and physical aspects (Jamshed et al 2018).…”