摘要：The expansion of renewable energies, such as wind power, is a promising way of mitigating climate change.Because of the risk of collision with rotor blades, wind turbines have negative effects on local bird populations, particularly onraptors such as the Red Kite (Milvus milvus). Appropriate assessment tools for these effects have been lacking. To close thisgap, we have developed an agent-based, spatially explicit model that simulates the foraging behavior of the Red Kite around itsaerie in a landscape consisting of different land-use types. We determined the collision risk of the Red Kite with the turbine asa function of the distance between the wind turbine and the aerie and other parameters. The impact function comprises thesynergistic effects of species-specific foraging behavior and landscape structure. The collision risk declines exponentially withincreasing distance. The strength of this decline depends on the raptor's foraging behavior, its ability to avoid wind turbines,and the mean wind speed in the region. The collision risks, which are estimated by the simulation model, are in the range ofvalues observed in the field. The derived impact function shows that the collision risk can be described as an aggregated functionof distance between the wind turbine and the raptor's aerie. This allows an easy and rapid assessment of the ecological impactsof (existing or planned) wind turbines in relation to their spatial location. Furthermore, it implies that minimum buffer zonesfor different landscapes can be determined in a defensible way. This modeling approach can be extended to other bird specieswith central-place foraging behavior. It provides a helpful tool for landscape planning aimed at minimizing the impacts of windpower on biodiversity
关键词：collision risk; foraging behavior; impact assessment; individual-based model; Milvus milvus; Red Kite; spatial;model; wind power
