Avian Vulnerability Estimation and Power Analysis (AVEPowA)

Understanding risks of offshore energy development to seabirds is challenging due to the breadth of species exposed and the complexity of marine ecosystems. Identifying the species most likely to be affected depends on:

  • knowledge of animal distributions,
  • clear understanding about effects pathways,
  • an understanding of what species traits influence risk, and
  • the conservation status of those populations

To help fill key data gaps in our understanding of which species are at higher risk from development, we are leading an expansion of an existing avian vulnerability assessment for offshore wind in the U.S. Atlantic to better understand the factors that influence vulnerability in response to offshore development. Results from these studies will inform guidance for offshore research and monitoring efforts.

BRI Team: Evan Adams, Holly Goyert, Kate Williams

Approach

 

Credit: Shawn Dohring

Our work integrates two distinct but linked components: (1) a vulnerability assessment and (2) a study design analysis.

The vulnerability assessment evaluates the population, collision, and displacement risks to birds from offshore energy development. This information is used to inform a power analysis that determines how best to design offshore surveys to detect changes in seabird distributions associated with offshore wind energy development.

These two project activities are linked by an intermediate step that translates vulnerability scores into quantitative assessments of the magnitude and extent of displacement. Species with high vulnerability may be particularly valuable targets for surveys, and surveys in turn can address gaps or uncertainties in species vulnerability. Research products from both components will be used to understand why certain species are more or less vulnerable to offshore development, and to develop guidance that advances future science, research, and monitoring efforts.

Avian Offshore Vulnerability

Understanding displacement and collision is critical for assessing the impacts of offshore energy development on marine birds. Vulnerability to these stressors informs how species are evaluated and prioritized for field studies and research on impact assessment or mitigation. This vulnerability assessment for the U.S. Atlantic addresses two key objectives:

(1) Use information from the scientific literature to determine the relative vulnerability of birds that use the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf in terms of demographics, collision, and displacement, and

(2) Prioritize species and key areas for future research to fill knowledge gaps related to population dynamics, collision risks, and displacement susceptibility based on the vulnerability of each species.

Data generated from this process will expand traditional analyses of sensitivity to global change by incorporating ecological traits of species that affect their susceptibility to alterations in their surrounding environments.

Assessing Behavioral Changes to Offshore Development

Offshore wind energy in Europe has well-documented effects on bird behavior, including both attraction and displacement of seabirds from the developed areas. Species-specific estimates of behavioral effects are necessary to translate information from the vulnerability assessment to the power analysis.

Once behavioral estimates are developed, a power analysis informs the design of at-sea observational surveys to detect distributional change. These analyses evaluate how key study design parameters influence the ability to detect post-construction changes in seabird distributions. We will explore designs for project-specific surveys around individual wind farm areas, as well as regional-scale survey designs.

The goal of both approaches is to determine the survey effort needed to achieve sufficient statistical power to consistently detect changes in bird distributions for key species of interest. This process will account for long-term distribution shifts, documented in a recent analysis of data in the Northwest Atlantic Seabird Catalog.

Guidance for Research and Monitoring

Findings from this work will be incorporated into regional research and monitoring guidance. Knowledge gained from this effort will be used to update past efforts, such as the ETWG Guidance for Pre- and Post-Construction Monitoring, and to create new guidance through the Regional Wildlife Science Collaborative.

Project Team and Funding

Project team:

Funding:

This project is funded by the Regional Wildlife Science Collaborative Regional Research Fund under RFP Regional Research 2025-02.

Products: Manuscripts, code, and databases to come.