Mistimed surveys lead to underestimated migratory bird impacts from wind farms

This repository contains the datasets and R Markdown scripts supporting the manuscript “Mistimed surveys lead to underestimated migratory bird impacts from wind farms” on wind farm survey timing and migratory bird impact assessments.

Data files

windfarm_metadata.xlsx – metadata on wind farm sites in Australia, including site identifiers, location information, and project attributes.

windfarm_species_table.xlsx – survey records of each species and their associated likelihood of occurrence status. The sheet "validation" contains summary of species counts and detection dates and periods used to validate the methods.

windfarm_survey_dates.xlsx – compiled survey dates from environmental impact assessments, used to assess the timing of field surveys relative to expected migration periods.

Code files

The analysis workflow is structured as sequential R Markdown documents:

n0_data_preparation.Rmd – prepares and cleans raw data, harmonising site, species, and survey information for analysis.

n1_method_design.Rmd – outlines and implements the methodological framework used to evaluate survey timing against species’ migration windows.

n2_method_figure.Rmd – generates figures illustrating the methodological design.

n2_result_combination.Rmd – integrates intermediate results across datasets for subsequent analyses.

n3_perfomance_regression.Rmd – runs regression analyses assessing survey performance relative to species occurrence likelihood.

n4_result_validation.Rmd – validates the survey window defined by the methods using field detection data.

n5_likelihood_model.Rmd – Modelling the likelihood of occurence results using survey performance with other variables as predictors.

s1_buffer_test.Rmd – supplementary analysis testing sensitivity to spatial buffers around survey locations.