GBSC Working Group "Airport Ecology"
Chairman: Wolfgang Klapdor, Airport Cologne/Bonn
Vice Chairman: LTC Dr. Heinrich Weitz, Bundeswehr Geoinformation Service
In spite of being strongly influenced by humans, airports are dynamic ecosystems. In most cases, they consist of a variety of different habitats which in turn are frequently managed by different methods. Each habitat therefore has its specific avifauna. This explains the complexity of the bird-strike problem.
When, in the late 1950s, the jet age had started, birds were increasingly becoming a hazard to flight safety. The first attempts to counter this problem involved the use of various (visual and acoustic) technical means, the shooting of birds, and the application of chemical deterrents. However, these attempts were of no remarkable success. Instead, the solution lay in the introduction of biological and ecological management methods. It was realised that airport habitats could only be made less attractive to hazardous bird species by means of ecological restoration and extensive land management. In order to develop efficient bird-dispersal methods, it was - and is - necessary to analyse the relation between the habitat requirements of the various bird species and the specific environmental factors at the respective airport.
That is why, for each airport, a specific habitat report has to be prepared, detailing the importance of soil, water, climate, vegetation, fauna and management for the respective bird species. These reports, which take into account the conclusions drawn from the latest bird-strike statistics, are regularly updated. This guarantees that even individual measures are adapted to the latest developments and to the continually changing ecological circumstances at the airport. As a result, the short-grass and mulch management that had been common for decades, was replaced by a - partly differentiated - extensive long-grass management. In the context of landscape management, restoration programmes were developed for vast hull heather and heathy moorland areas. Large agricultural areas were transformed into coppice and coppice with standards. The resulting habitats are hardly attractive to hazardous bird species like gulls, crows, Lapwing, Starling and Buzzard. Apart from the flight-safety aspect of those measures, their biological significance must not be underestimated either: the newly developed habitats are of a much higher ecological value than the intensively managed, highly monotonous grassland and agricultural areas. As a result of those measures, heavy-weight, hazardous bird species are replaced by light-weight species. In the grassland areas of the airports, the number of small bird species has increased, while the number of ubiquitous, hazardous species appearing in large flocks like crows and gulls, has decreased.
