Assessment and mitigation of impacts of power lines and guyed meteorological masts on birds - guidance
Type of publication
Guidelines
Author
Scottish Natural Heritage
Year
2016
Language
English
Publicly available
Yes
Organisation
Scottish Natural Heritage
Organisation type
Government
Country of experiment
Description
This guidance document provides advice on how to assess the potential impacts on birds of proposed overhead power lines. It includes advice on mitigating risk of collisions both with power lines and with guyed meteorological masts. The target audience for this document includes developers and their ecological consultants, NatureScot staff and those within the consenting authorities.
This guidance focuses on high-voltage transmission lines which normally transmit electricity over large distances between load centres; e.g. for Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission these are defined as lines carrying 1500V and above. They usually require an assessment for consent under section 37 of the Electricity Act and therefore require significant survey work to inform Environmental Impact Assessments. However, low-voltage distribution power lines (smaller structures carrying power to domestic end-users) can also have significant impacts on birds and much of the text may also be relevant to these, especially with regard to mitigation. Meteorological masts are also considered, as their supporting guy wires can present a collision risk.
Target species
Multi-species