Abstract
The Scottish Government has a target for 100% of Scottish demand for electricity to be met from renewables by 2020 by creating a portfolio of both onshore and offshore technologies (Marine Scotland 2011). However, concern over the environmental impacts of these developments in the UK, and in particular the risk of birds colliding with wind turbines, has contributed to the delay and cancellation of some projects. This work aims to reduce the current level of uncertainty around appropriate avoidance rates for seabird species within collision risk modeling by providing a thorough review of the existing evidence base. The review identifies current knowledge gaps and aims to ensure that future strategic work is targeted at addressing the most appropriate issues. The primary objectives discussed in this report are:
- Produce definitions for the types and scales of avoidance rates that will be used throughout the review document.
- Review the current use of avoidance rates.
- Review and critique existing avoidance behaviour studies and any derived rates.
- Provide summary table/s of individual avoidance rates and a final Total Avoidance Rate for each priority species/species group.
- Undertake an assessment of the sensitivity of the conclusions reached to inputs and conditions under which they were collected.
- Applicability of avoidance rates to different collision risk models.