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 Wildlife and Wind Farms - Conflicts and Solutions.
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.
Wildlife and Wind Farms - Conflicts and Solutions 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.
Preface
1. Monitoring birds - K. Shawn Smallwood
2. Monitoring bats - Cris D. Hein
3. Modelling collision risk and populations - Ian Smales
4. Statistical principles of post-construction fatality monitoring design - Manuela Huso, Dan Dalthorp and Fränzi Korner-Nievergelt
5. Spatial planning - Jenny Bright and Caoimhe Muldoon
6. Mitigation for birds - Roel May
7. Turbine siting for raptors - K. Shawn Smallwood, Lee Neher and Douglas A. Bell
8. Mitigating bat collision - Edward B. Arnett
9. A best practice approach to future planning - Victoria Gartman, Eva Schuster, Johann Köppel and Martin R. Perrow
Index
Martin Perrow is Founder and Director of ECON Ecological Consultancy Ltd and currently manages the ornithological requirements of several wind farm sites, assessing the likely impacts and providing advice in order to engineer the co-‐existence of birds and wind farms with minimal impacts. He has published widely on the subject.
- Shortlisted for the The Wildlife Society's 2019 Edited Book award.
"[...] This four-volume series provides a much-needed overview of the potential effects of wind farms on wildlife and local ecosystems as well as potential solutions. Due to inherent differences between onshore and offshore wind farms, the series is divided into four volumes written by leading experts in the field, although the writing style is very accessible for a broad professional audience. The four volumes are similar in structure and topic coverage, and each can be read independently [...] We consider these four volumes to provide an excellent introduction and overview into the broad range of effects of wind farms on ecological systems, and on monitoring methodologies and potential mitigation measures. The volumes are highly recommended to anyone interested in the field – students, researchers, consultants, practitioners and policy-makers, even if their focus is only on a single taxonomic group. Due to the imbalance in research conducted worldwide, as explicitly mentioned by the editor and authors, Volumes 1 and 2 provide contributions mainly from North American and Europe and Volumes 3 and 4 have a stronger geographical bias towards research in western Europe. That understandable bias will hopefully be more limited in the future as data from other parts of the world become available. Several chapters would have benefitted from cross-references between chapters, but the final chapter of each volume generally integrates information well, highlighting gaps in our knowledge and providing some suggestions for the future. In this quickly growing field, where a great deal of work is not published in peer-reviewed journals, these highly informative and accessible volumes are a great place to start, as they are structured to facilitate both quick referencing and more in-depth reading."
– Judy Shamoun-Baranes, Elspeth Sage, Jens van Erp & Emiel van Loon, Ibis, 2020
"[...] Whilst I have been sent two volumes in this series, there are a further two, dealing with similar "offshore" topics. Frankly, I wish I had been sent all four, for this looks to be a trendsetter of textbooks. Pelagic Publishing is gaining a reputation for producing modestly priced, attractively adorned and crisply edited volumes, and Volumes 1 and 2 bear this out. I'll go further – these are superb books, and I congratulate the editor and the many contributors. [...] These two volumes are excellent, and I look forward to reading more in the series."
– Des Thompson, BES Bulletin, 49(1)
"[...] These two books are a major step forward consolidating our current knowledge of potential impacts of wind farms on wildlife, and options for monitoring and mitigation. Coherent structures for each chapter provide easy navigation, and liberal decoration with case studies, figures, tables and photographs, means that the expansive content is easily digestible. [...] The Editor and the many authors of chapters and cases studies should be congratulated on this important contribution to the field. The next two offshore volumes are highly anticipated."
– Chris Thaxter, BTO book reviews