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Willow ptarmigan found dead under wind turbine at the Smøla wind‐power plant, Norway in October 2015
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• Birds colliding with turbine rotor blades is a well‐known negative consequence of wind‐power plants. However, there has been far less attention to the risk of birds colliding with the turbine towers, and how to mitigate this risk.
• Based on data from the Smøla wind‐power plant in Central Norway, it seems highly likely that willow ptarmigan (the...
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German / English summaries:
Die Ausführungen dienen dem Ziel, zu beurteilen, ob weiße oder farbig oder mit UV-reflektierenden Substanzen behandelte Oberflächen von Rotoren von Windkraftanlagen, von (Klein)vögeln gesehen werden können und ggf. so Vermeidungsmaßnahmen möglich sind.
Um diese Situation besser beurteilen zu können, werden unter dem As...
Citations
... One of the most pronounced impacts of wind energy operation on wildlife, and the primary focus of this review, occurs when birds and bats collide with turbine blades in-flight and are immediately killed, or mortally injured. Birds and flying-foxes have also been recorded colliding with transmission lines (Pande et al. 2013;Winder et al. 2014;Lin 2017) and turbine towers (Zeiler and Grünschachner-Berger 2009;Stokke et al. 2020), even when the blades are stationary. While barotrauma (damage to the lungs caused by changes in pressure) was once considered a likely additional cause of mortality for bats at wind energy facilities, various ecological, veterinary and simulation studies have concluded that if/when this occurs, it is of secondary importance to impact trauma associated with physical collisions Rollins et al. 2012;Lawson et al. 2020). ...
... This is despite the authors cautioning in the original study that Smøla is a very specific context ecologically, and that more research is required in a variety of settings with different target species before such generalisations should be made. Another study from Smøla has demonstrated that painting not only the turbine blades but also the bottom 10 m of the towers can reduce collisions for Willow Ptarmigan by 48% (Stokke et al. 2020, see Figure 7). However, this is a medium-sized grouse species that spends time on the ground in areas where the white bases of the turbines blend into the surrounding snow cover, quite dissimilar to Victorian bird Species of Concern. ...
Assessment, mitigation and monitoring of
onshore wind turbine collision impacts on wildlife: A systematic review of the international peer-reviewed literature, and its relevance
to the Victorian context. Available at https://www.ari.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0023/746060/ARI-Technical-Report-389-Systematic-review-of-onshore-wind-farm-collisions.pdf
... Considerable efforts to understand and reduce the effects of wind energy facilities on vertebrate species, especially raptors and bats, have occurred (Schuster, Bulling & Koppel, 2015); however, insects remain largely unstudied. Operational curtailment, color changes, and acoustic deterrents may reduce turbine-related avian and bat fatalities (Arnett et al., 2013;May et al., 2020;Smallwood & Bell, 2020;Stokke et al., 2020). These mitigation strategies could reduce effects to insects. ...
In 2023 the wind industry hit a milestone of one terawatt of installed capacity globally. That amount is expected to double within the next decade as billions of dollars are invested in new wind projects annually. Wildlife mortality is a primary concern regarding the proliferation of wind power, and many studies have investigated bird and bat interactions. Little is known about the interactions between wind turbines and insects, despite these animals composing far more biomass than vertebrates. Turbine placement, coloration, shape, heat output, and lighting may attract insects to turbines. Insects attract insectivorous animals, which may be killed by the turbines. Compiling current knowledge about these interactions and identifying gaps in knowledge is critical as wind power grows rapidly. We reviewed the state of the literature investigating insects and wind energy facilities, and evaluated hypotheses regarding insect attraction to turbines. We found evidence of insect attraction due to turbine location, paint color, shape, and temperature output. We provide empirical data on insect abundance and richness near turbines and introduce a risk assessment tool for comparing wind development with suitable climate for insects of concern. This understudied topic merits further investigation as insects decline globally. Compiling information will provide a resource for mitigation and management strategies, and will inform conservation agencies on what insects may be most vulnerable to the expansion of wind technologies.
... Several publications show the negative effects of noise and human disturbance on bird populations [24][25][26]29,30,36,55]. Third, possible indirect effects are that prey species of the goshawks might die or leave the area [31,32] and that the goshawks also leave because less prey is available, but I have no data on the effects of the construction on the abundance of prey species. However, investigations show that the amount of prey species has a significant effect on goshawk density and/or hunting area [55,77], but the reduction in one type of prey might cause the goshawks to hunt other species [58]. ...
Wind power is commonly used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but often has negative effects on biodiversity. In this study, I investigated the effects of wind farm and power line construction on the territory status of the Eurasian goshawk Accipiter gentilis, whether fledglings were produced or not, and the number of fledglings. Included were 55 goshawk territories investigated before and after the construction period. I found that the territory status declined significantly in the influence area within 3 km from the disturbance compared to the control area more than 7 km away. Interestingly, the decline in territory status was similar in the distance categories 0–1 km, 1–2 km, and 2–3 km, while there was nearly no change in territory status in the control area, thus indicating that the influence area from this kind of disturbance was minimum 3 km from the nest. The number of breeding pairs declined significantly during the construction period only in the influence area. Possible reasons might be higher mortality caused by collisions with power lines, desertion, avoidance of the areas with noise and disturbance from the constructions, and possible indirect effects caused by reductions in prey species. I found no effects of the construction on the number of fledglings.
... Research from other areas suggests ptarmigan, Lagopus spp. and other grouse species die from collision with large monopoles, rather than from impact by turbine blades [36]. More detailed information on locations of fatalities of the Galliformes we note here would provide insight into if they may have died in a similar manner. ...
Increased interest in renewable energy has fostered development of wind and solar energy facilities globally. However, energy development sometimes has negative environmental impacts, such as wildlife fatalities. Efforts by regional land managers to balance energy potential while minimizing fatality risk currently rely on datasets that are aggregated at continental, but not regional scales, that focus on single species, or that implement meta-analyses that inappropriately use inferential statistics. We compiled and summarized fatality data from 87 reports for solar and wind facilities in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts region of southern California within the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan area. Our goal was to evaluate potential temporal and guild-specific patterns in fatalities, especially for priority species of conservation concern. We also aimed to provide a perspective on approaches interpreting these types of data, given inherent limitations in how they were collected. Mourning doves (Zenaida macroura), Chukar (Alectoris chukar) and California Quail (Callipepla californica), and passerines (Passeriformes), accounted for the most commonly reported fatalities. However, our aggregated count data were derived from raw, uncorrected totals, and thus reflect an absolute minimum number of fatalities for the monitored period. Additionally, patterns in the raw data suggested that many species commonly documented as fatalities (e.g., waterbirds and other nocturnal migrants, bats) are rarely counted during typical pre-construction use surveys. This may explain the more commonly observed mismatch between pre-construction risk assessment and actual fatalities. Our work may serve to guide design of future scientific research to address temporal and spatial patterns in fatalities and to apply rigorous guild-specific survey methodologies to estimate populations at risk from renewable energy development.
... Thus, there remain considerable uncertainty in whether all carcasses are in fact found during the carcass surveys in post-construction studies 5 . Carcass surveys are surprisingly often made by human observers 12,18,23 instead of using trained dogs which are proven to be distinctly more efficient in locating carcasses 14,[24][25][26] . Trained dogs efficiently search an area faster than humans relying only on visual cues, thus enabling searches to be both time-and cost-effective. ...
... Some environments have higher bird diversity and abundances, such as wetlands and coastal regions, and are therefore also associated with intrinsically higher mortality rates 34 . Some habitats are also easier to survey and conduct experiments in than others, where grasslands are considerably less challenging than high mountainous, rocky terrain with outcrops and crevices 23,26,35,36 . Also, post-construction surveys are currently not standardized, despite the obvious need for repeatable and adequate monitoring methods 5 ; there is therefore a diversity of approaches used that render comparisons of turbine mortality extremely complex. ...
As demand for renewable energy is rising, wind power development is rapidly growing worldwide. In its wake, conflicts arise over land use changes converting pristine nature into industrial power plants and its associated adverse biodiversity effects, crowned by one of the most obvious and deadly consequences: bird collisions. Most post-construction studies report low levels of avian mortality, but the majority of these studies are conducted primarily on larger birds. However, the diversity and abundance of small passerine birds are rarely reflected in the carcass surveys, although they in numeric proportion to their abundances should be the most numerous. The assumption that surveys find all carcasses seems thus rarely fulfilled and passerine mortality is likely to be grossly underestimated. We therefore designed an experiment with dummy birds to estimate mortality of small-bodied passerines and other small-bodied birds during post-construction surveys, tested in a medium-sized wind farm in western Norway. The wind farm was surveyed weekly during the migration periods by carcass survey teams using trained dogs to find killed birds. The dogs in the carcass surveys were more successful in locating the large than the small dummy birds (60–200 g), where they found 74% of the large dummy birds. Detecting the smaller category (5–24 g) was more demanding and the dogs only found 17% of the small dummy birds. Correcting the post-construction carcass survey outcome with the results from the experiment leads to an almost fourfold increase in estimated mortality rates, largely due to the low detection rate of the smallest category. The detection rates will naturally vary between wind farms, depending on the specific habitat characteristics, the efficiency of the carcass surveys and the search intervals. Thus, implementing a simple experiment with dummy birds to future post-construction surveys will produce more accurate estimates of the wind turbine mortality rates, and thus improve our understanding of the biodiversity effects of conforming to a more sustainable future.
... Concerning the prevention of collisions information about the lack of displacement is important. Painting wind towers black has been observed to partially prevent collisions of gallinaceous birds (Coppes et al., 2020b;Stokke et al., 2020), and painting the rotors decreases mortality by over 70 % for a range of birds, especially raptors . Automatic turbine shutdown during the vicinity of griffon vultures has reduced collision mortalities by over 90 %, with an estimated loss of <0.5 % in energy production (Ferrer et al., 2022). ...
Wind power is a rapidly growing source of energy worldwide. It is crucial for climate change mitigation, but it also accelerates the degradation of biodiversity through habitat loss and the displacement of wildlife. To understand the extent of displacement and reasons for observations where no displacement is reported, we conducted a systematic review of birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals. Eighty-four peer-reviewed studies of onshore wind power yielded 160 distinct displacement distances, termed cases. For birds, bats, and mammals, 63 %, 72 %, and 67 % of cases respectively reported displacement. Cranes (3/3 cases), owls (2/2), and semi-domestic reindeer (6/6) showed consistent displacement on average up to 5 km. Gallinaceus birds showed displacement on average up to 5 km, but in 7/18 cases reported to show "no displacement". Bats were displaced on average up to 1 km in 21/29 cases. Waterfowl (6/7 cases), raptors (24/30), passerines (16/32) and waders (8/ 19) were displaced on average up to 500 m. Observations of no displacement were suggested to result from methodological deficiencies, species-specific characteristics, and habitat conditions favorable for certain species after wind power development. Displacement-induced population decline could be mitigated by situating wind power in low-quality habitats, minimizing the small-scale habitat loss and collisions, and creating high-quality habitats to compensate for habitat loss. This review provides information on distance thresholds that can be employed in the design of future wind energy projects. However, most studies assessed the effects of turbine towers of <100 m high, while considerably larger turbines are being built today.
... Based on laboratory tests, painting a single blade in black has been proposed as a suitable measure to reduce motion smear and risk of collisions [21]. Recent studies have tested the hypothesis that painting in black one of the turbine blades ( Fig. 2) to reduce motion smear, and painting the tower to increase the contrast against the background, would reduce the collision risk of birds with wind turbines [23,24]. The measures were intended for different bird species: the former targeted species that fly at the blade height, such as soaring raptors and birds with aerial display, while the latter targeted species with poorly developed vision and flight maneuverability, and species typically flying relatively low heights, such as galliformes [24]. ...
... Recent studies have tested the hypothesis that painting in black one of the turbine blades ( Fig. 2) to reduce motion smear, and painting the tower to increase the contrast against the background, would reduce the collision risk of birds with wind turbines [23,24]. The measures were intended for different bird species: the former targeted species that fly at the blade height, such as soaring raptors and birds with aerial display, while the latter targeted species with poorly developed vision and flight maneuverability, and species typically flying relatively low heights, such as galliformes [24]. Both studies followed a before-aftercontrol-impact (BACI) approach to test the painting effects in turbines at the Smøla wind power plant in Norway. ...
... For the in-situ experiments with the blades, a reduction of around 70% Even though the results were encouraging, the authors recommended to replicate or implement the measure in a larger number of turbines, given the limited number of turbine pairs in their experiment. The experiments with the tower indicated that the effect of painting was most pronounced in spring and autumn, as winter generally has poor light conditions and tower basis are hard to observe regardless of their appearance [24]. In this case, a reduction of around 48% in annual collision rates was observed for willow ptarmigans (Lagopus lagopus). ...
Bird collisions with wind turbines is one of the major environmental impacts of wind energy. To decrease the number of avian fatalities in wind farms, several studies have been done to understand, evaluate and apply measures that reduce the risks of collisions. Overall, mitigation measures during the operational phase of wind farms are based on either active or passive procedures, depending on the need (or not) for an external source to trigger an action for preventing a possible collision. The aim of this work is firstly to provide an overview of mitigation measures that have been demonstrated in-situ, including the overall procedures of the tests, results, as well as advantages and disadvantages of the measures. Subsequently, a new patented control concept to avoid collisions (SKARV) is described. Four measures that have been tested at wind farms in Spain, Norway, and USA are summarized: habitat management and painting (passive measures), turbine curtailment and deterrents (active measures). Estimations from these tests indicate an average reduction of 33%-86% in annual bird fatality for specific targeted species. The SKARV concept is not yet tested, but may be a benign alternative.
... Wind power is a major and increasingly used source of renewable energy (Energy Information Administration, 2021). However, there are ecological challenges associated with energy generation via wind power, including collisions of wildlife with turbine rotors and towers (Katzner et al., 2019;Stokke et al., 2020). Indeed, hundreds of thousands of birds and bats are killed annually at wind power facilities in the United States alone (Hayes, 2013;Loss et al., 2013;Smallwood, 2013). ...
Wind power is an expanding source of renewable energy. However, there are ecological challenges related to wind energy generation, including collisions of wildlife with turbines. Lack of rigor, and variation in study design, together limit efforts to understand the broad-scale effects of wind power infrastructure on wildlife populations. It is not clear, however, whether these types of limitations apply to groups of birds such as raptors that are particularly vulnerable to negative effects of wind energy. We reviewed 672 peer-reviewed publications, unpublished reports, and citations from 321 wind facilities in 12 countries to evaluate methods used to monitor and mitigate for wind facility impacts on raptors. Most reports that included raptor monitoring (86%, n = 461) only conducted post-construction monitoring for raptor fatalities, while few (12%; n = 65) estimated pre-construction raptor use. Only 27% of facilities (n = 62) provided estimates of fatalities or raptor use across multiple construction phases, and the percentage of facilities with data available from multiple construction periods has not changed over time. A formal experimental study design was incorporated into surveys at only 29% of facilities. Finally, mitigation practices to reduce impacts on raptors were only reported at 23% of facilities. Our results suggest that rigorous data collection on wind energy impacts to raptors is rare, and that mitigation of detrimental effects is seldom reported. Expanding the use of rigorous research approaches and increasing data availability would improve understanding of the regional and global effects of wind energy on raptor populations.
... The previous investigations identified a literature gap about the critical barriers impeding the Indian wind power sector. For instance, some (Fast et al. 2016;Lolla, Roy, and Chowdhury 2015) Debt and equity problems (Agarwal, Verma, and Martín et al. 2018;Nazir et al. 2020;Stokke et al. 2020;Łopucki, Klich, and Gielarek 2017) Preference for conventional electricity (Phadke, Park, and Uneven profit distribution among stakeholders (Iglesias, Del Río, and Já 2011;Zhou et al. 2012) Historical land is occupied by wind farms (Fast and Mabee 2015;Sharma and Sinha 2019) studies have examined wind energy programs with the goal of determining the functions of technical innovation, efficacy, and the influence of wind technology implementation (Bento and Fontes 2019; Edsand 2017), while others have examined the reasons for wind energy's slow growth (Chaurasiya, Warudkar, and Ahmed 2019;Dong et al. 2018;Razzaq, Fatima, and Murshed 2021;Sun et al. 2022). While several barriers were identified, previous works did not comprehensively focus on examining and comprehending the critical barriers impeding the Indian wind power growth. ...
... Wind projects usually need constructing buildings, and related stuff on massive land, destroying the natural habitats of wildlife (Łopucki, Klich, and Gielarek 2017). Similarly, birds having low maneuverability frequently collide with rotor blades (Stokke et al. 2020). ...
Since a variety of barriers pose challenges to the Indian wind energy sector, the extent to which these barriers hamper this sector and the alternative solutions are largely unknown. We identify several barriers using existing literature, and then using the modified Delphi approach, refine 25 barriers and classify them into five significant dimensions. Later, the Analytical Hierarchical Process determined the ranking of barriers using pairwise comparison matrices. The Grey Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution method ranked alternative solutions to these barriers. Results indicate that "financial barrier" is the most important barrier among all dimensions, while "limited government subsidy" is most influential among all sub-barriers. "Availability of adequate funds" is the best alternative to overcome these barriers. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is performed to validate the study findings. The study findings may assist practitioners and policy-makers in boosting the current sluggish growth of the Indian wind sector. KEYWORDS Analytical hierarchical process; barriers; gray technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution method; India; modified Delphi method; wind energy development
... Even though our analyses show that gallinaceous birds are less affected by power plant developments in Norway compared to other groups, there is undoubtedly spatial variation in how such species are prone to negative effects of such developments. At Smøla wind-power plant, willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) and white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) are the highest-ranking species when it comes to risk of colliding with wind turbines (May et al., 2020b;Stokke et al., 2020). Still, in general siting of wind-power plants was preferred in areas with low levelized cost of energy but higher risk of disturbance. ...
While wind energy remains a preferred source of renewable energy, understanding the full spectrum of impacts are vital to balance climate-related benefits against their costs to biodiversity. Environmental impact assessments often fail to assess cumulative effects at larger spatial scales. In this respect, life cycle assessments are better suited, but have to date mainly focused on greenhouse gas emissions and energy accounting. Here, we adapt a recent global life-cycle impact assessment (LCA) methodology to evaluate collision, disturbance and habitat loss impacts of onshore wind energy development on bird species richness in Norway. The advantage of a local model for Norway is that it enables employing species distribution models to more accurately estimate the potential distribution area of species. This facilitates more realistic site- and species-specific assessments of potential impacts within a local scale but excludes habitat ranges outside Norway. Furthermore, a new characterization factor was developed for potential barrier effects. Larger onshore wind-power plants overall had greater site-specific potentially disappeared fractions (PDF) of species, while smaller plants were less efficiently located with greater impacts per GWh. Overall, Norwegian wind-power plants were sited least efficiently (PDF/GWh) regarding indirect habitat loss (2.186 × 10⁻⁹) and disturbance (1.219 × 10⁻⁹), followed by direct habitat loss (0.932 × 10⁻⁹), and finally collisions (0.040 × 10⁻⁹) and barriers (0.310 × 10⁻⁹). Vulnerability differed among bird groups with seabirds, raptors and waterfowl emerging as the most impacted groups (e.g. 5.143 × 10⁻⁹, 3.409 × 10⁻⁹ and 3.139 × 10⁻⁹ PDF/GWh for disturbance, respectively); highlighting the sympatric distribution of their habitats and the majority of Norway's onshore wind-power plants. Current practice has not succeeded in avoiding sites with higher impacts for birds, fuelling conflicts surrounding environmental concerns of onshore wind energy development in Norway. Operative LCA models can help decision-makers assessing localized life-cycle environmental impacts to support environmental-friendly wind energy production in specific regions.
