Last week in the House of Commons, the Nature Minister, Mary Creagh CBE MP, discussed how solar farms can provide significant Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG). Astonishingly, some solar projects on grazing land reported an improvement of 140%!
This further establishes solar farms as a fantastic option for farms to diversify their income streams in addition to supporting nature conservation. By integrating solar panels with careful land management, farmers can create habitats for pollinators, birds, and other wildlife, enriching the ecosystem. It’s a win-win solution, helping the UK strive for Net-Zero whilst simultaneously fostering healthier biodiverse environments.
One of the best ways to measure avian biodiversity is through the use of bioacoustics. Wilder Sensing, which can use any recorder, can be used on short and long-term surveys, so is suitable for current and future solar farm sites to cary out base line and on-going surveys in a directly comparable way.. We leverage simple commercially available audio recorders to capture vast amounts of audio data across a site or landscape. Our AI tools then analyse this data to identify bird species, helping you gain valuable insights into:
- Species Presence and Identification
- Species Distribution across a site
- Seasonal, Temporal & Behavioural Patterns and Variations
- Long term changes to Species Richness
- Biodiversity Hotspots
Our intuitive analytics platform makes it easy to track and visualise these changes, allowing you to display clear and accurate data. This data can be collected quickly and efficiently, providing you with evidence based insights.
By quantifying the species present on solar farms, land managers can modify their practices to enhance habitats and support a greater variety of wildlife. For example, our platform includes indices, such as the Farmland Bird Index (FBI). This allows solar farm operators to identify how many FBI species are present and tailor site management to attract and support further species on the list. This is vital for the restoration of farmland ecology, given the JNCC reported that the FBI dropped 60% between 1970 and 2022 (JNCC, 2022).
Additionally, our data highlights species distribution across the site, indicating which areas attract specific species. With this information, land management can be optimised to nurture fragile populations such as Skylarks boosting the biodiversity benefits of solar farms.
For more information on how Wilder Sensing can help you measure BNG on solar sites, feel free to reach out to us at info@wildersensing.com.
