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Biodiversity and Wind Farms in Portugal pp 23–33Cite as

Impacts of On-shore Wind Farms in Wildlife Communities: Direct Fatalities and Indirect Impacts (Behavioural and Habitat Effects)

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Abstract

In addition to its immense environmental benefits, the great expansion of wind energy generates simultaneous concerns about its adverse impacts. The impacts have been identified for human populations, landscape and wildlife, but, due to direct fatality, birds and bats are the groups for which scientists are most concerned. Due to renewable energy goals, Portugal has witnessed a great development of wind energy in recent years, with a substantial part of its mountainous areas occupied by on-shore wind turbines. In this chapter we present a literature review on the major impacts that wind energy has on birds and bats, but also in terrestrial mammals, because of the evidence of disturbance and/or displacement of more sensitive species, mostly during the operation phase. Despite there are few published data, we focus the research on Portuguese examples. Some considerations of evaluation of the impacts and cumulative impacts are also made.

Keywords

  • Wind energy and wildlife effects
  • Birds and bats ecology
  • Cumulative impacts
  • Direct impacts
  • Indirect impacts
  • Portuguese case of study

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bioinsight, Odivelas, Portugal

    Pedro Pereira, Nuno Salgueiro & Sílvia Mesquita

Authors
  1. Pedro Pereira
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  2. Nuno Salgueiro
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  3. Sílvia Mesquita
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sílvia Mesquita .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Bioinsight, Odivelas, Grande Lisboa, Portugal

    Miguel Mascarenhas

  2. cE3c—Centro de Ecologia, Evolução e Alterações Ambientais, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Grande Lisboa, Portugal

    Ana Teresa Marques

  3. Bioinsight, Cape Town, South Africa

    Ricardo Ramalho

  4. Centro de Investigação Interdisciplinar em Sanidade Animal (CIISA), Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Dulce Santos

  5. CIBIO-InBIO, Department of Biology—Pole of Mitra, University of Évora, Évora, Alto Alentejo, Portugal

    Joana Bernardino

  6. Department of Biology—Group of Adaptation Biology and Ecological Processes, University of Aveiro—CESAM, Aveiro, Baixo Vouga, Portugal

    Carlos Fonseca

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Pereira, P., Salgueiro, N., Mesquita, S. (2018). Impacts of On-shore Wind Farms in Wildlife Communities: Direct Fatalities and Indirect Impacts (Behavioural and Habitat Effects). In: Mascarenhas, M., Marques, A., Ramalho, R., Santos, D., Bernardino, J., Fonseca, C. (eds) Biodiversity and Wind Farms in Portugal. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60351-3_2

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