The Project
e2m was commissioned to undertake an on ground ecological constraints assessment for the proposed turbine locations placement in a wind farm near Strathmore. e2m was engaged to identify Commonwealth and State Government Prescribed Environmental Matters (PEMs) that may be impacted by the proposed wind farm.
Our Approach
A detailed desktop assessment of the Project Area was undertaken prior to field verification surveys. This included summarising relevant Commonwealth and State legislation, identifying PEMs and other ecological matters within the Project Area, assessing the likelihood of occurrence of these PEMs and producing maps depicting the distribution and extent of PEMs.
Field surveys were undertaken across challenging topography, assessing all vegetation and habitat sites for the extrapolation of ecological values across the project area. The field survey included verifying the vegetation and habitat values within the proposed turbine locations to determine if environmental constraints from PEMs would be cause for concern for the Project development.
The team used a variety of technology driven ecology and GIS based initiatives to access large parts of the site which were inaccessible, to ensure absolute site coverage and accuracy of insights collated within the report.
Outcomes
Our team developed an effective scoring system to identify constrained areas. This considered constraints associated with fauna, flora, TEC’s, state-mapped regulated vegetation and other environmental features such as biodiversity corridors and connectivity values. The scoring system and resulting maps assisted with the siting of wind farm infrastructure.
