TY - CHAP
TI - Estimating Bird and Bat Fatality at Wind Farms: From Formula-Based Methods to Models to Assess Impact Significance
AU - Marqués, J
AU - Rodrigues, L
AU - Silva, M
AU - Santos, J
AU - Bispo, R
AU - Bernardino, J
T2 -  Biodiversity and Wind Farms in Portugal
AB - The impact of the operation of wind farms on birds and bats in terms of true fatality is still unknown. However, fatality numbers can be estimated using statistical methods that have improved over recent years, aiming to provide a closer representation of the real ecological conditions. To assess which statistical methods have been used to estimate bird and bat fatality in the Portuguese context, we analysed 225 wind farm fatality monitoring reports, published between 2005 and 2015, and concluded that the methodology is not standardised. Importantly, the estimators used to calculate fatality differ amongst the environmental specialists and over time. These findings can hamper an integrated analysis of the impacts caused by wind farms at a national scale and bias the importance of cumulative impacts. We also reviewed the most recently published fatality estimators in order to better understand their applicability to the Portuguese private environmental consultancy context. Our analysis identified the criteria that most influences the implementation of a valuable fatality estimation methodology and assembled a list of considerations that a best practice guidelines protocol can be based upon for application at both the regional and national scale.
CY - Cham, Switzerland 
DA - 2017/09//
PY - 2017
SP - 151
EP - 204
PB - Springer
UR - https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-60351-3_7
U1 - Bioinsight
LA - English
KW - Wind Energy
KW - Birds
KW - Bats
ER -