Cumulative Environmental Impacts of Wind Power Complex Construction in Mountain Forests: An Ecological Restoration Perspective Through Avian Diversity

Countless studies have been conducted on cumulative environmental impacts, but not many have been performed on specific cases of the presence or absence of actual cumulative environmental impacts and restoration, and there is no standardized method for judging cumulative environmental impacts. With our study, we aimed to fill this research gap. We methodologically propose that environmental impacts and restoration can be intuitively expressed by measuring alpha diversity, beta diversity, and gamma diversity in avian fauna. We hope that our proposal will enable many researchers to apply these measurements not only to wind power projects but also various others. This will let them move away from data-less claims and rather track changes in environmental impacts with objective data, considering cumulative environmental impacts and recovery of impacts over time. The results showed that there were changes in the three types of diversity due to the development of wind power complexes on mountain ridges during construction, and the environment was restored over several years. In conclusion, cumulative environmental impacts due to the development of wind power complexes on mountain ridges were not found when limited to avifauna, and impacts due to construction showed a pattern of restoration after construction. There were also cases where restoration occurred even during construction.