Coast Bird Diversity

Coast Bird Diversity aims to develop the scientific and technological basis and tools for understanding and predicting quantitatively the effects on birds of the many human activities (e.g. reclamation, salt production, resource harvesting, recreation) that are carried out on the coast. 

European estuaries and coastal flats provide vital intertidal feeding areas for migratory shorebirds (waders and wildfowl), particularly outside the breeding season. Policy decisions are frequently required, at geographic scales ranging from local to European, on how best to maintain this biodiversity and to reconcile its protection with economic development.

At present, these decisions are not based on quantitative population predictions for alternative management and policy options. This project will develop behaviour-based population models to explore the effects on bird numbers of alternative management options, whether at one or more local sites or at a regional or Europe-wide scale.

The objective is to provide policy makers with quantitative predictions as to the possible (i) negative effects on birds of a wide range of potentially damaging human activities, and (ii) positive effects of mitigating measures. It would therefore provide the means by which informed decisions can be taken on how best to reconcile human activities with the conservation of biodiversity.

The project uses computer models to predict how individual birds respond to environmental change (for example, how they alter their feeding location if one area becomes degraded, or how they switch to alternative prey if their preferred prey declines), and how the behaviour and fates of these individuals feed through to the mortality rate and overall size of the population as a whole. This is a novel approach, capable of predicting the response of bird populations at a range of scales, something that has proved impossible in the past.

The project is still running and the data collection stage has just been completed. Models are now being developed for wading birds in the bahia de Cadiz, Spain, the baie de Somme, France and the Exe estuary, UK, and for Brent geese throughout there western European flyway. Predictions will be produced later during this final year of the project. So far the project has showed that the required data can be collected within a relatively short time-scale, something that is essential if the models are to be used successfully.

The project aims to advise policy decisions at two scales. First, within individual sites the project will advise how site-specific issues (e.g. the intensification of fish farms in the bahia de Cadiz or the encroachment of saltmarsh vegetation onto bird feeding areas in the baie de Somme) influence site quality for birds. Secondly, at a more general scale the project will advise on the types of environmental change that are more likely to adversely effect bird populations.

The project will indicate the types of environmental change the are likely to have an adverse effect on coastal bird biodiversity. It will therefore indicate ways in which the coastal zone can be managed to prevent the loss of biodiversity.

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