Abstract
Tidal turbines have the potential to impact diving birds, primarily through collision with turbine blades. There is a legal requirement to assess these impacts. Collision risk modelling has been used widely to quantify collision risk to birds flying through wind farms. Intuitively, the same approach can be taken when assessing risk of underwater turbines to diving birds. Such models require data on a bird’s foraging and diving behaviour to calculate their likely exposure to a tidal turbine array while foraging underwater. Accordingly, we have reviewed studies from peer-reviewed literature that present estimates for diving parameters for diving marine birds that occur in UK waters. These values can be used within underwater collision risk models. This work will provide a key resource to the consenting process as it can be used in the assessment of environmental impacts of marine renewable developments.