{"id":{"repo_id":"potsdam-thes","oai_identifier":"oai:kobv.de-opus4-uni-potsdam:66665"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/potsdam-thes/oai:kobv.de-opus4-uni-potsdam:66665","repository":{"repo_id":"potsdam-thes","name":"Universität Potsdam - Thes","base_url":"https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/opus4-ubp/oai"},"display":{"title":"Potential collision risk of harriers Circus spp. with wind turbines during breeding season derived from GPS tracking","abstract":"Raptors have been shown to be especially vulnerable to collide with wind turbines, but knowledge on particular species-specific aspects of flight behaviour that determine the collision risk has remained limited. In this context, GPS telemetry represents a promising but hitherto seldom applied technique. I used an extensive collection of GPS tracking data, including high-resolution flight tracks (measurement interval of 3 s), to investigate the collision risk of breeding male Montagu’s Harriers Circus pygargus (MoH; n = 24 individuals), Hen Harriers C. cyaneus (HH; n = 3) and Western Marsh-harriers C. aeruginosus (MaH; n = 3) in the Dutch-German border area. First, the relevant flight behaviour characteristics were quantified separately. For MoH, these were subsequently incorporated in a collision risk model to estimate their present collision-induced mortality in the study area. Furthermore, several scenarios of future wind energy developments were studied. On average, MoH and MaH spent as much as 8.2 and 7.0 h per day on the wing, as opposed to 4.3 h in HH. The vast majority of flights occurred close to the ground, reflecting the harriers’ particular foraging behaviour. Only 7.1 (MoH), 9.6 (HH) and 3.3 % (MaH) of GPS fixes lay within the rotor height range of an average wind turbine (45-125 m). When comparing different turbine models, the proportion of time spent at risk heights increased exponentially with decreasing minimum rotor tip height (MRTH). MoH spent on average 2.0 % of time inside wind farms, and the extent of wind farm usage was negatively correlated to the nest-to-wind-farm distance. Both MoH and MaH showed avoidance behaviour, approaching turbines significantly less often than expected from a null model of random flight trajectories. The avoidance rate amounted to 94.2 and 69.0 %, respectively. For the present state, with wind farms situated in the fringes of the nesting range of the studied MoH population, the collision risk models indicated a rather low number of yearly collisions, not reaching the critical threshold of additional mortality determined from a population model. However, the erection of a new wind farm inside the inner breeding area could potentially lead to a population decline. When assuming that the wind farms would be repowered with modern, large and low-reaching turbines (rotor diameter 114 m, MRTH 36 m), the mortality would be more than doubled, whereas repowering with higher turbines (MRTH 86 m) would allow increasing the power capacity substantially without leading to a marked increase in mortality. Although my study has only a preliminary character in several regards, it demonstrates the great value of GPS tracking in the context of assessing the collision risk of birds with wind turbines and may serve as an example for future studies. The results suggest that MoH exhibit a rather low collision risk, as long as core breeding areas are kept free from wind farms. Raising the MRTH of wind turbines was shown to represent an opportunity of reducing the collision risk of the three harrier species considerably.","abstract_html":"Raptors have been shown to be especially vulnerable to collide with wind turbines, but knowledge on particular species-specific aspects of flight behaviour that determine the collision risk has remained limited. In this context, GPS telemetry represents a promising but hitherto seldom applied technique. I used an extensive collection of GPS tracking data, including high-resolution flight tracks (measurement interval of 3 s), to investigate the collision risk of breeding male Montagu’s Harriers Circus pygargus (MoH; n = 24 individuals), Hen Harriers C. cyaneus (HH; n = 3) and Western Marsh-harriers C. aeruginosus (MaH; n = 3) in the Dutch-German border area. First, the relevant flight behaviour characteristics were quantified separately. For MoH, these were subsequently incorporated in a collision risk model to estimate their present collision-induced mortality in the study area. Furthermore, several scenarios of future wind energy developments were studied. On average, MoH and MaH spent as much as 8.2 and 7.0 h per day on the wing, as opposed to 4.3 h in HH. The vast majority of flights occurred close to the ground, reflecting the harriers’ particular foraging behaviour. Only 7.1 (MoH), 9.6 (HH) and 3.3 % (MaH) of GPS fixes lay within the rotor height range of an average wind turbine (45-125 m). When comparing different turbine models, the proportion of time spent at risk heights increased exponentially with decreasing minimum rotor tip height (MRTH). MoH spent on average 2.0 % of time inside wind farms, and the extent of wind farm usage was negatively correlated to the nest-to-wind-farm distance. Both MoH and MaH showed avoidance behaviour, approaching turbines significantly less often than expected from a null model of random flight trajectories. The avoidance rate amounted to 94.2 and 69.0 %, respectively. For the present state, with wind farms situated in the fringes of the nesting range of the studied MoH population, the collision risk models indicated a rather low number of yearly collisions, not reaching the critical threshold of additional mortality determined from a population model. However, the erection of a new wind farm inside the inner breeding area could potentially lead to a population decline. When assuming that the wind farms would be repowered with modern, large and low-reaching turbines (rotor diameter 114 m, MRTH 36 m), the mortality would be more than doubled, whereas repowering with higher turbines (MRTH 86 m) would allow increasing the power capacity substantially without leading to a marked increase in mortality. Although my study has only a preliminary character in several regards, it demonstrates the great value of GPS tracking in the context of assessing the collision risk of birds with wind turbines and may serve as an example for future studies. The results suggest that MoH exhibit a rather low collision risk, as long as core breeding areas are kept free from wind farms. Raising the MRTH of wind turbines was shown to represent an opportunity of reducing the collision risk of the three harrier species considerably.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Schaub, Tonio"],"institution":"Universität Potsdam","degree_name":null,"degree_level":"master","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Klaassen, Raymond","Eccard, Jana"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2017,"date_issued":"2017-10-17","date_published":"2017-10-17","updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:52:13Z","subjects":["Windenergie","Kollisionsrisiko","Vogelschutz","Greifvögel","GPS-Telemetrie","wind energy","collision risk","bird conservation","raptors","GPS tracking"],"languages":[],"rights":["CC-BY-NC - Namensnennung, nicht kommerziell 4.0 International"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/66665","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"source_url"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Klaassen, Raymond","Eccard, Jana"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Schaub, Tonio"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["Universität Potsdam"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["masterThesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["master"]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["Universität Potsdam"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Windenergie","Kollisionsrisiko","Vogelschutz","Greifvögel","GPS-Telemetrie","wind energy","collision risk","bird conservation","raptors","GPS tracking"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["CC-BY-NC - Namensnennung, nicht kommerziell 4.0 International"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Raptors have been shown to be especially vulnerable to collide with wind turbines, but knowledge on particular species-specific aspects of flight behaviour that determine the collision risk has remained limited. In this context, GPS telemetry represents a promising but hitherto seldom applied technique. I used an extensive collection of GPS tracking data, including high-resolution flight tracks (measurement interval of 3 s), to investigate the collision risk of breeding male Montagu’s Harriers Circus pygargus (MoH; n = 24 individuals), Hen Harriers C. cyaneus (HH; n = 3) and Western Marsh-harriers C. aeruginosus (MaH; n = 3) in the Dutch-German border area. First, the relevant flight behaviour characteristics were quantified separately. For MoH, these were subsequently incorporated in a collision risk model to estimate their present collision-induced mortality in the study area. Furthermore, several scenarios of future wind energy developments were studied. On average, MoH and MaH spent as much as 8.2 and 7.0 h per day on the wing, as opposed to 4.3 h in HH. The vast majority of flights occurred close to the ground, reflecting the harriers’ particular foraging behaviour. Only 7.1 (MoH), 9.6 (HH) and 3.3 % (MaH) of GPS fixes lay within the rotor height range of an average wind turbine (45-125 m). When comparing different turbine models, the proportion of time spent at risk heights increased exponentially with decreasing minimum rotor tip height (MRTH). MoH spent on average 2.0 % of time inside wind farms, and the extent of wind farm usage was negatively correlated to the nest-to-wind-farm distance. Both MoH and MaH showed avoidance behaviour, approaching turbines significantly less often than expected from a null model of random flight trajectories. The avoidance rate amounted to 94.2 and 69.0 %, respectively. For the present state, with wind farms situated in the fringes of the nesting range of the studied MoH population, the collision risk models indicated a rather low number of yearly collisions, not reaching the critical threshold of additional mortality determined from a population model. However, the erection of a new wind farm inside the inner breeding area could potentially lead to a population decline. When assuming that the wind farms would be repowered with modern, large and low-reaching turbines (rotor diameter 114 m, MRTH 36 m), the mortality would be more than doubled, whereas repowering with higher turbines (MRTH 86 m) would allow increasing the power capacity substantially without leading to a marked increase in mortality. Although my study has only a preliminary character in several regards, it demonstrates the great value of GPS tracking in the context of assessing the collision risk of birds with wind turbines and may serve as an example for future studies. The results suggest that MoH exhibit a rather low collision risk, as long as core breeding areas are kept free from wind farms. Raising the MRTH of wind turbines was shown to represent an opportunity of reducing the collision risk of the three harrier species considerably.","Greifvögel sind bekanntermaßen besonders anfällig für Kollisionen mit Windkraftanlagen (WKA). Zu bestimmten artspezifischen Aspekten des Flugverhaltens, die das Kollisionsrisiko bestimmen, liegen bisher jedoch nur wenige belastbare Informationen vor. GPS-Telemetrie stellt in diesem Zusammenhang eine vielversprechende neue Methode dar. Auf der Basis von umfangreichen GPS-Tracking-Daten, z.T. in hoher zeitlicher Auflösung (Messintervall von 3 s), habe ich das Kollisionsrisiko von adulten Wiesen- Circus pygargus (WW; n = 24 Individuen), Korn- C. cyaneus (KW; n = 3) und Rohrweihen-Männchen C. aeruginosus (RW; n = 3) während der Brutzeit untersucht. Zunächst wurden die relevanten Aspekte des Flugverhaltens separat quantifiziert. Für WW wurden diese dann in einem Kollisionsrisikomodell zusammengeführt, um die Anzahl der Kollisionen an WKA im Untersuchungsgebiet abzuschätzen. Darauf aufbauend wurden verschiedene Szenarien eines weiteren Windenergie-Ausbaus untersucht. WW und RW verbrachten im Mittel 8,2 bzw. 7,0 h pro Tag im Flug, KW hingegen nur 4,3 h. Der Großteil der Flugbewegungen erfolgte in Bodennähe; nur 7,1 (WW), 9,6 (KW) bzw. 3,3 % (RW) der Ortungspunkte lagen innerhalb des mittleren Rotorhöhenbereichs (RHB; 45-125m). Im Vergleich verschiedener WKA-Modelle nahm die im RHB verbrachte Zeit mit abnehmender Höhe der Rotorunterkante (HRUK) exponentiell zu. Der von WW in Windparks (WP) verbrachte Zeitanteil war negativ mit deren Entfernung zum Nest korreliert; im Mittel betrug er 2,0 %. Sowohl WW als auch RW näherten sich WKA signifikant seltener, als es unter einem Null-Modell zufälliger Flugbewegungen zu erwarten wäre. Die Vermeidungsrate belief sich auf 94,2 (WW) und 69,0 % (RW). Für den aktuellen Zustand, in dem sich WP nur im Randbereich des Brutgebiets der untersuchten WW-Population befinden, ergab das Kollisionsrisikomodell eine recht geringe Zahl jährlicher Kollisionen. Diese lag unterhalb des kritischen Schwellenwertes zusätzlicher Mortalität, der in einem Populationsmodell ermittelt wurde. Die Errichtung eines neuen WP in einem der Kern-Brutgebiete könnte jedoch zu einem Rückgang des Bestands führen. Im Falle eines Repowerings der bestehenden WP mit modernen, großen und tiefreichenden WKA (Rotordurchmesser 114 m, HRUK 36 m) würde sich das Kollisionsrisiko von WW mehr als verdoppeln. Wenn man jedoch höhere WKA (HRUK 86 m) einsetzen würde, bliebe es in etwa konstant. Obwohl meine Studie in verschiedener Hinsicht nur einen vorläufigen Charakter besitzt, zeigt sie den großen Wert der GPS-Telemetrie für die Beleuchtung des Kollisionsrisikos von Vögeln mit WKA und kann für zukünftige Untersuchungen als Vorbild dienen. Die hier gewonnenen Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass WW ein eher geringes Kollisionsrisiko aufweisen, so lange Kernbrutgebiete frei von WP gehalten werden. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Anhebung der HRUK von WKA eine Möglichkeit darstellt, das Kollisionsrisiko der drei Weihenarten deutlich zu reduzieren."]},{"key":"dc:format.medium","label":"Dc Format Medium","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Potential collision risk of harriers Circus spp. with wind turbines during breeding season derived from GPS tracking","Potentielles Kollisionsrisiko von Weihen (Circus spp.) mit Windkraftanlagen während der Brutzeit abgeleitet von GPS-Telemetriedaten"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Klaassen, Raymond","Eccard, Jana"],"dc:creator":["Schaub, Tonio"],"dc:description.abstract":["Raptors have been shown to be especially vulnerable to collide with wind turbines, but knowledge on particular species-specific aspects of flight behaviour that determine the collision risk has remained limited. In this context, GPS telemetry represents a promising but hitherto seldom applied technique. I used an extensive collection of GPS tracking data, including high-resolution flight tracks (measurement interval of 3 s), to investigate the collision risk of breeding male Montagu’s Harriers Circus pygargus (MoH; n = 24 individuals), Hen Harriers C. cyaneus (HH; n = 3) and Western Marsh-harriers C. aeruginosus (MaH; n = 3) in the Dutch-German border area. First, the relevant flight behaviour characteristics were quantified separately. For MoH, these were subsequently incorporated in a collision risk model to estimate their present collision-induced mortality in the study area. Furthermore, several scenarios of future wind energy developments were studied. On average, MoH and MaH spent as much as 8.2 and 7.0 h per day on the wing, as opposed to 4.3 h in HH. The vast majority of flights occurred close to the ground, reflecting the harriers’ particular foraging behaviour. Only 7.1 (MoH), 9.6 (HH) and 3.3 % (MaH) of GPS fixes lay within the rotor height range of an average wind turbine (45-125 m). When comparing different turbine models, the proportion of time spent at risk heights increased exponentially with decreasing minimum rotor tip height (MRTH). MoH spent on average 2.0 % of time inside wind farms, and the extent of wind farm usage was negatively correlated to the nest-to-wind-farm distance. Both MoH and MaH showed avoidance behaviour, approaching turbines significantly less often than expected from a null model of random flight trajectories. The avoidance rate amounted to 94.2 and 69.0 %, respectively. For the present state, with wind farms situated in the fringes of the nesting range of the studied MoH population, the collision risk models indicated a rather low number of yearly collisions, not reaching the critical threshold of additional mortality determined from a population model. However, the erection of a new wind farm inside the inner breeding area could potentially lead to a population decline. When assuming that the wind farms would be repowered with modern, large and low-reaching turbines (rotor diameter 114 m, MRTH 36 m), the mortality would be more than doubled, whereas repowering with higher turbines (MRTH 86 m) would allow increasing the power capacity substantially without leading to a marked increase in mortality. Although my study has only a preliminary character in several regards, it demonstrates the great value of GPS tracking in the context of assessing the collision risk of birds with wind turbines and may serve as an example for future studies. The results suggest that MoH exhibit a rather low collision risk, as long as core breeding areas are kept free from wind farms. Raising the MRTH of wind turbines was shown to represent an opportunity of reducing the collision risk of the three harrier species considerably.","Greifvögel sind bekanntermaßen besonders anfällig für Kollisionen mit Windkraftanlagen (WKA). Zu bestimmten artspezifischen Aspekten des Flugverhaltens, die das Kollisionsrisiko bestimmen, liegen bisher jedoch nur wenige belastbare Informationen vor. GPS-Telemetrie stellt in diesem Zusammenhang eine vielversprechende neue Methode dar. Auf der Basis von umfangreichen GPS-Tracking-Daten, z.T. in hoher zeitlicher Auflösung (Messintervall von 3 s), habe ich das Kollisionsrisiko von adulten Wiesen- Circus pygargus (WW; n = 24 Individuen), Korn- C. cyaneus (KW; n = 3) und Rohrweihen-Männchen C. aeruginosus (RW; n = 3) während der Brutzeit untersucht. Zunächst wurden die relevanten Aspekte des Flugverhaltens separat quantifiziert. Für WW wurden diese dann in einem Kollisionsrisikomodell zusammengeführt, um die Anzahl der Kollisionen an WKA im Untersuchungsgebiet abzuschätzen. Darauf aufbauend wurden verschiedene Szenarien eines weiteren Windenergie-Ausbaus untersucht. WW und RW verbrachten im Mittel 8,2 bzw. 7,0 h pro Tag im Flug, KW hingegen nur 4,3 h. Der Großteil der Flugbewegungen erfolgte in Bodennähe; nur 7,1 (WW), 9,6 (KW) bzw. 3,3 % (RW) der Ortungspunkte lagen innerhalb des mittleren Rotorhöhenbereichs (RHB; 45-125m). Im Vergleich verschiedener WKA-Modelle nahm die im RHB verbrachte Zeit mit abnehmender Höhe der Rotorunterkante (HRUK) exponentiell zu. Der von WW in Windparks (WP) verbrachte Zeitanteil war negativ mit deren Entfernung zum Nest korreliert; im Mittel betrug er 2,0 %. Sowohl WW als auch RW näherten sich WKA signifikant seltener, als es unter einem Null-Modell zufälliger Flugbewegungen zu erwarten wäre. Die Vermeidungsrate belief sich auf 94,2 (WW) und 69,0 % (RW). Für den aktuellen Zustand, in dem sich WP nur im Randbereich des Brutgebiets der untersuchten WW-Population befinden, ergab das Kollisionsrisikomodell eine recht geringe Zahl jährlicher Kollisionen. Diese lag unterhalb des kritischen Schwellenwertes zusätzlicher Mortalität, der in einem Populationsmodell ermittelt wurde. Die Errichtung eines neuen WP in einem der Kern-Brutgebiete könnte jedoch zu einem Rückgang des Bestands führen. Im Falle eines Repowerings der bestehenden WP mit modernen, großen und tiefreichenden WKA (Rotordurchmesser 114 m, HRUK 36 m) würde sich das Kollisionsrisiko von WW mehr als verdoppeln. Wenn man jedoch höhere WKA (HRUK 86 m) einsetzen würde, bliebe es in etwa konstant. Obwohl meine Studie in verschiedener Hinsicht nur einen vorläufigen Charakter besitzt, zeigt sie den großen Wert der GPS-Telemetrie für die Beleuchtung des Kollisionsrisikos von Vögeln mit WKA und kann für zukünftige Untersuchungen als Vorbild dienen. Die hier gewonnenen Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass WW ein eher geringes Kollisionsrisiko aufweisen, so lange Kernbrutgebiete frei von WP gehalten werden. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Anhebung der HRUK von WKA eine Möglichkeit darstellt, das Kollisionsrisiko der drei Weihenarten deutlich zu reduzieren."],"dc:format.medium":["application/pdf"],"dc:publisher":["Universität Potsdam"],"dc:rights":["CC-BY-NC - Namensnennung, nicht kommerziell 4.0 International"],"dc:subject":["Windenergie","Kollisionsrisiko","Vogelschutz","Greifvögel","GPS-Telemetrie","wind energy","collision risk","bird conservation","raptors","GPS tracking"],"dc:title":["Potential collision risk of harriers Circus spp. with wind turbines during breeding season derived from GPS tracking","Potentielles Kollisionsrisiko von Weihen (Circus spp.) mit Windkraftanlagen während der Brutzeit abgeleitet von GPS-Telemetriedaten"],"dc:type":["masterThesis"],"thesis:degree_level":["master"],"thesis:institution_name":["Universität Potsdam"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:52:13Z"}