Citation

Soldatini C, Albores-Barajas YV, Lovato T, Andreon A, Torricelli P, Montemaggiori A, Corsa C, Georgalas V. PLoS One 2011; 6(12): e28920.

Affiliation

Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, University Ca'Foscari of Venice, Venice, Italy.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0028920

PMID

22194950

PMCID

PMC3237557

Abstract

The presence of wildlife in airport areas poses substantial hazards to aviation. Wildlife aircraft collisions (hereafter wildlife strikes) cause losses in terms of human lives and direct monetary losses for the aviation industry. In recent years, wildlife strikes have increased in parallel with air traffic increase and species habituation to anthropic areas. In this paper, we used an ecological approach to wildlife strike risk assessment to eight Italian international airports. The main achievement is a site-specific analysis that avoids flattening wildlife strike events on a large scale while maintaining comparable airport risk assessments. This second version of the Birdstrike Risk Index (BRI2) is a sensitive tool that provides different time scale results allowing appropriate management planning. The methodology applied has been developed in accordance with the Italian Civil Aviation Authority, which recognizes it as a national standard implemented in the advisory circular ENAC APT-01B.

Language: en