Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
have been operating for a number of years. However, in consideration of these
aspects it is clear that our collective understanding is substantially limited by the
nature and scope of what has - or has not - been studied; by major differences in
regulatory prescriptions for investigations over time and within- and between
Australian jurisdictions; and by the availability of documented studies where they
have been undertaken. All of this is within a context of perceptions of impacts held
by wind farm proponents, opponents and regulators about turbine collisions.
As a consequence, I have attempted to frame this discussion around what we
currently understand and have learnt, but also about what the essential basis for
assessment of bird and bat collisions with turbines ought to be.
Firstly, I provide a brief summary from available information about rates of col-
lisions and species involved at south-eastern Australian wind farms. Secondly, since
bird and bat collisions with wind turbines receive considerable publicity and con-
tinue to be subject to a high degree of regulatory scrutiny, I outline a comparison
with another human cause of bird mortality. The main aim of this is to highlight the
differing attitudes and paradigms under which we view anthropogenic fauna mortal-
ity,ratherthantodirectlycomparenumbersofbirdsorbatskilled.NextIlookat
how collision risk has been used in planning and approval processes for wind farms
and the one available comparison of predictive collision risk modeling used in wind
farm planning against the actual levels of mortalities due to collisions over the past
10years.Finally,Ioffersomethoughtsabouttheappropriatebasisonwhichassess-
ment of collision mortalities should be made and some recommendations aimed at
improving our understanding of bird and bat collisions with wind turbines.
What Do We Know About Actual Collisions at
Australian Wind Farms?
Unfortunately,despitetheexistenceofmorethan40operatingwindfarmsinsouth-
eastern Australia, we have very poor information about the numbers or rates of
actualbirdandbatmortalities.Reasonsforthisincludelackofmonitoringatearly
wind farms; the fact that the great majority of information that has been collected is
not published; and that use of different monitoring methods means that available
results are often not comparable.
Monitoringfordeadbirdsandbatsresultingfromwindturbinecollisionsisnow
a routine condition of consent for new wind farms but standards and methods stipu-
lated for this have varied widely since the first wind farms were approved in
Australia. The Commonwealth and each State in south-eastern Australia now has
regulatoryrequirementsand/orguidelinesinplace(seeReferences).Someofthem
include quite detailed prescriptions for a relatively high level of assessment of tur-
bine collision risk for the purposes of informing a wind farm development applica-
tion and for monitoring of actual fatalities during operation (e.g. Department of
PrimaryIndustries,WaterandEnvironmentTasmania
2004a
,
b
). Others are much
lessspeciicintheirrequirements(e.g.DepartmentofPlanningandInfrastructure
