Seeing the Big Picture

Wind energy siting decisions require complex information that can overwhelm the decision-making process. Computerized tools are being developed that collate, overlay, and display a wide variety of information in visual, map-based form. These tools provide information that is widely applicable to landscape-level and regional assessment, allowing wind energy developers and advocates to anticipate potential environmental risks earlier in the wind siting planning process.

AWWI has developed one such resource, the Landscape Assessment Tool (LAT), with The Nature Conservancy and with input from industry and environmental partners.

The LAT is accessible online. It is important to remember that it is a general screening tool using publicly available data to provide up-to-date information about the environmental characteristics and important landscape-level wildlife values of a geographic area. "Landscape-level" means that the LAT is not designed for and cannot be used for project-specific siting evaluation, which requires much more localized and detailed information.

The LAT is most useful in offering early guidance about possible sensitivity of a site within a larger landscape context, and in identifying sensitive wildlife habitat and areas likely to have low wildlife risk. It can also be useful in the development of conservation plans, monitoring plans, and mitigation strategies.

At present, the LAT's data, because it is gathered from a wide variety of sources originally compiled for different purposes, is limited by a high degree of variation in its accuracy and scale. As new data and sources become available, we continue to improve the accuracy and functionality of the LAT.

We invite you to view and use the LAT and welcome your input and reactions. A fact sheet on AWWI's Landscape Assessment Tool (LAT) is available [here].