Temporal and spatially explicit forecast-model for broad-front bird migration across Switzerland based on radar surveillance

• Forschungsstelle: COST
• Projektnummer: C14.0113
• Projekttitel Englisch: Temporal and spatially explicit forecast-model for broad-front bird migration across Switzerland based on radar surveillance

Schlüsselwörter (Englisch)

bird migration; weather radar; forecast; modelling; monitoring system; bird strike prevention

Forschungsprogramme (Englisch)

COST-Action ES1305 - European Network for the Radar surveillance of Animal Movement (ENRAM)

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

Worldwide, numerous taxa and billions of organisms move through the airspace to find and exploit favourable food resources. With radar surveillance of the airspace, researchers can study behavioural decisions of organisms, the timing and spatial distribution of their movements, their response to environmental conditions, and quantify the temporal and spatial abundance of organisms in the air. In Europe, operational weather radars continuously monitor atmospheric conditions and are organized in a network to facilitate data exchange and measurements at the continental scale. About 2.1 billion birds migrate every autumn from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa, and about a similar number of birds migrates within Europe and northern Africa. These mass movements occur on a broad front all across Europe, mainly at night. These movements are recorded by weather radars, but only recently these data have been made available for ecological research. This project aims on making use of these data to develop a spatially explicit model to reveal a forecast of bird migration across Switzerland. Apart from the scientific interest, there is a strong demand from the aviation industry to solve the increasing problem of collisions between aircrafts and birds. A first step towards a risk avoidance strategy is to locate and to predict the occurrence of birds in the airspace.

Weitere Hinweise und Angaben (Englisch)

Full name of research-institution/enterprise: Schweizerische Vogelwarte Head of bird migration research department

Partner und Internationale Organisationen (Englisch)

AT; BE; BG; DK; EE; FI; FR; DE; EL; HU; IL; IT; MT; NL; NO; PL; PT; SL; ES; SE; TR; UK

Abstract (Englisch)

Every year about 5 billion birds migrate seasonally between Europe and Northern Africa or even sub-Saharan Africa to escape harsh conditions by migrating to more favourable areas during the non-breeding season. This mass movement takes place on a broad front and mainly at night. The species use the aerosphere to travel between breeding and overwintering areas and thus are strongly influenced by occurring wind conditions. Studies on birds using Radars or GPS Tracking Devices could show that birds are able to adapt their migration behaviour to the surrounding conditions as for example by selection of favourable flight altitudes. Such knowledge is now used in the current project as the basis for developing a temporal and spatially explicit forecast model on bird migration density to predict bird occurrence. Apart from the scientific interest such predictions are of high interest for collision risk assessment at wind farm as well as for aviation industry. As most migrants are small passerines, they are the main focus in our research. A bird migration simulation model was implemented and is the first approach to derive predictions on bird migration patterns. To model migrating birds in the aerosphere, temporal and spatially simulation of wind conditions are carried out using a mesoscale weather simulation model. It provides time-series on a 10-minute basis, of wind direction and wind speed up to 2000 m above ground level for a specified area. In the current work we focus on Switzerland and parts of neighbouring countries; in future work we shall cover the whole of Europe. Topography information is derived from a GIS-data base developed in the Laboratory for Energy Conversion (LEC) at ETH. A dataset on topography provides information on the terrain (dataset of University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)). Furthermore different bird behaviour models were implemented. The simulated birds adapt their flight altitude and direction in respect to occurring wind conditions. As bird migration across Switzerland is highly influenced by the topography of the Alps and Jura mountains, the simulated birds are able to view obstacles in their flight direction and adapt flight direction and/or flight altitude.

Datenbankreferenzen (Englisch)

Swiss Database: COST-DB of the State Secretariat for Education and Research Hallwylstrasse 4 CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland Tel. [phone] Swiss Project-Number: C14.0113