Team Chiro

Context

In France, legislation imposes on developers of wind farms to carry out a pre-implantation assessment and post-implantation monitoring. Today, all the actors involved in wind farms projects agree on the need to exploit the biodiversity data from these studies. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to structure and agregate data on a national scale. 

 

Goals

The goals of the project were to develop, ahead of a future research project, 1) a data standard defining the format, structure, nature of the data and the informations to be associated with them, 2) an "inventory of monitoring and protocols for birds " to anticipate the creation of a standard entirely dedicated to birds, 3) a" data transmission procedure "aiming to identify the operational implementation of the new standard online and the generalization of its use, as well as the potential blocking points, and finally 4) a "feasibility study on the scientific exploitation of data" to anticipate the diversity of data sources on a national scale, their nature, their quality and their quantity. 

 

Description of the operation

The overall project was carried out collaboratively, involving a large number of structures involved in onshore wind farms projects, more than twenty in total and bringing together around 40 people. Regular exchanges and follow-ups were possible thanks to the creation of a steering committee and of a technical committee. Thus, these permanent exchanges allowed us to inventory the protocols, data, and reports available. In addition, expectations and constraints in terms of data entry in DEPOBIO platform have been identified. Finally, discussions on technical feasibility were carried out. 

 

Summary of results

The project allowed the creation of a standard declined according to 3 main types of protocols: acoustic monitoring with a total of 41 specific fields, mortality monitoring with a total of 31 specific fields, and prospecting of roosts with a total of 8 specific fields.

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Perspectives

The DEPOBIO database will allow to conduct large-scale research projects on bat and bird ecology, notably on the spatio-temporal drivers of the impacts of wind turbines. The applications of such research projects can help to enhance the effectiveness of the avoid-reduce-offset policy.