Electricity Pylons Research Articles

Electrocutions as an important cause of mortality for a mesocarnivore

Abstract In this work, we have analysed the different causes of admissions of stone martens (Martes foina), genets (Genetta genetta) and pine martens (Martes martes) in two rehabilitation centres in Castilla y León (Spain) during 32 years (1991–2022). The results indicate that the most important factor for stone martens was road kills with 227 martens (53.4 %) followed by electrocutions with 90 martens (21.2 %). From genets, 94 of them (68.6 %) were due to roadkill and 7 (5.1 %) were due to electrocution. The most important cause of admission for pine martens was road kills with 22 (88 %) and 1 (4 %) due to electrocution. Possible explanations for the observed high mortality of stone martens in electric pylons are discussed.

Railroad bridge monitoring using Dragonfly® piezoelectric strain gauge

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) applied to civil structures such as bridges, high-rise towers, and electricity pylons can help plan their maintenance, detect damages or un-expected events, and extend their remaining operating lifetime. Metallic foil strain gauge and vibrating wire are the historic sensors used to measure strain on civil structures. However, civil structures are designed to undergo little deformation in service (0.1-50 µdef). Both SG and vibrating wire are limited by their resolution around 1 µdef. Moreover, they are known for their DC drift over time, which complexifies long term monitoring. There is therefore a need for more sensitive and less prone to drift sensors in the time domain. Dragonfly new piezoelectric strain gauges, with a resolution three order of magnitude over classic sensors, solve these issues and enable new applications. Dragonfly sensors consist in an extremely thin piezoelectric ceramic packaged in a flexible PCB and pre-wired with a SMA connector. The flexible sensor is glued with cyanoacrylate glue to the object to be studied. This paper presents the implementation of Dragonfly sensors on a railroad bridge. With a single sensor, it has been possible to identify the bridge girder first two resonance using ambient noise, train passage loading for fatigue-life analysis, train passage reproducibility, and pedestrian passage on the walkway. A complete comparison with classic metallic foil strain gauge is detailed.

An Improved YOLOv8 Network for Detecting Electric Pylons Based on Optical Satellite Image.

Electric pylons are crucial components of power infrastructure, requiring accurate detection and identification for effective monitoring of transmission lines. This paper proposes an innovative model, the EP-YOLOv8 network, which incorporates new modules: the DSLSK-SPPF and EMS-Head. The DSLSK-SPPF module is designed to capture the surrounding features of electric pylons more effectively, enhancing the model's adaptability to the complex shapes of these structures. The EMS-Head module enhances the model's ability to capture fine details of electric pylons while maintaining a lightweight design. The EP-YOLOv8 network optimizes traditional YOLOv8n parameters, demonstrating a significant improvement in electric pylon detection accuracy with an average mAP@0.5 value of 95.5%. The effective detection of electric pylons by the EP-YOLOv8 demonstrates its ability to overcome the inefficiencies inherent in existing optical satellite image-based models, particularly those related to the unique characteristics of electric pylons. This improvement will significantly aid in monitoring the operational status and layout of power infrastructure, providing crucial insights for infrastructure management and maintenance.

Adoption by olive baboons (Papio anubis) of newly constructed electricity pylons as sleeping sites in Laikipia, Kenya.

Olive baboons (Papio anubis) use fixed, secure, and naturally occurring sleeping sites such as tall trees and rocky cliffs, as protection from predators and often show a selection preference for particular trees or rocky cliff faces. We documented olive baboons' adoption of recently constructed high-tension electrical transmission towers (pylons) as a novel type of sleeping site in Laikipia, Kenya. The use of pylons suggests that the greatest potential benefits may include reduced parasite exposure and predation avoidance. Thermoregulation and feeding efficiency are not supported as benefits because pylons increase baboons' exposure to wind and cool nighttime temperatures and the pylons were constructed in locations independent of established feeding sites. These observations advance our understanding of olive baboon sleeping site selection in a changing landscape.

Lava flow impacts on the built environment: insights from a new global dataset

The recent destruction of thousands of homes by lava flows from La Palma volcano, Canary Islands, and Nyiragongo volcano, Democratic Republic of Congo, serves as a reminder of the devastating impact that lava flows can have on communities living in volcanically active regions. Damage to buildings and infrastructure can have widespread and long-lasting effects on rehabilitation and livelihoods. Our understanding of how lava flows interact with buildings is limited and based upon sparse empirical data. Often a binary impact is assumed (destroyed when in contact with the flow and intact when not in contact with the flow), although previous events have shown this to be an oversimplification. Empirical damage data collected after past events provide an evidence base from which to better understand lava flow impacts across a range of building types, environments, and eruption styles, as well as to explore the temporal and spatial trends in these impacts. However, information on lava flow impacts is scattered across literature, reports, and maps; no comprehensive dataset of lava flow impacts exists. In this study, we compile and standardise lava flow impact information from previously compiled data, eruption records, and published literature to create the first comprehensive global dataset of impacts on the built environment from lava flows. We found that since the first recorded event between 5494 yr B.P. and 5387 yr B.P., lava flows from at least 155 events have impacted buildings or infrastructure (e.g., roads, electricity pylons, ski-lifts), with most (47%, n = 73) recorded as located in Europe. Over the last century, there have been approximately seven lava flow impact events per decade (n = 71 total). This greatly expands on the past compilations of lava flow impact events. Since ca. 1800 CE, impacts have been consistently documented for less than 14% of recorded eruptions with lava flows globally; prior to 1800 CE, impacts were recorded much more variably (between 0 and 70% of lava flows in any 10-year time bin). The most destructive recorded events were the 1669 CE lava flows at Etna volcano, Italy, which destroyed up to 12 villages and part of the city of Catania, and the 2002 CE lava flows at Nyiragongo volcano, Democratic Republic of Congo, which destroyed up to 14,000 buildings. We found that few studies in the dataset report building typology, damage severity, or hazard intensity at the building-level scale, limiting our ability to assess past building-lava interactions. Future collection of building-level hazard and impact data, supplemented with non-English language records, can be used to inform models that forecast future impacts, support lava flow risk assessments, and develop potential mitigation measures.

Little Owl Aggression and Territory in Urban and Rural Landscapes.

Urbanization is a major land use change across the globe with vast effects on wildlife. In this paper, we studied (1) the territorial displays of Little Owls in urban and rural landscapes, analyzing also (2) the size and habitat composition of the territories, and (3) the factors affecting territory size in both landscapes. To do that, we used t-tests, Principal Components Analysis, and General Linear mixed model procedures. The territory size was smaller in urban than in rural landscapes. Urban territories of Little Owls are characterized by a lower cover of grassland, tall crops, short crops, gardens, and orchards, as well as a higher cover of built-up areas than territories in rural landscapes. Territory size in rural landscapes was negatively correlated with seasonal progress and positively correlated with altitude. The rate of territorial displays was similar between urban and rural territories; however, birds differentially utilized various structures. In urban territories, birds mostly used buildings, whereas in rural territories, birds used electric pylons and trees. The compositional differences between territories in the two landscapes may have important consequences for other behavior types and possibly reproductive output in this species.

Drivers of Electric Pylon Used as Nesting Sites by Birds in Baicheng City, China

Drivers of Electric Pylon Used as Nesting Sites by Birds in Baicheng City, China

Good examples of electrical network security for Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni) in SPA Sakar (BG002021)

The overhead electrical power lines, which are part of the electricity distribution network, could be considerable threat to different bird species. The main incidents are related to electrocution and bird`s collision with power lines. The biggest danger comes from electrocution – in these cases birds die as a result of contact with the power line. The electrical current generates electric arc through the bird and the power line and leading to the birds’ instant death. The Green Balkans, as а breeder in SPA Sakar BG 002021 Bulgaria, and under the projects “Lesser Kestrel Recovery” LIFE11 NAT/BG/360 and “LIFE for Lesser Kestrel” LIFE19 NAT/BG/001017 succeeded to recover Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni, Fleischer 1818) and among the aims of the project was to take measures to mitigate the threat of electrocution. Among the operational over ground power grid lines in Bulgaria, according to the electrical voltage, the most dangerous and life threatening to birds is the mid voltage power supply grid (20 kV) that is also the main cause for death from electrocution. The Green Balkans` team conducted field research of the dangerous types of pylons, on-site isolation of electricity pylons has been identified within a range of 4.5 km of the Lesser Kestrel colony. According to the way of safeguarding the elements of the electrical grid several different devices were used: “Rigid bird protective cover”, perch guards and bird discouragers. Safeguarding by installation of perches has also been done. The isolation of dangerous pylons in the electrical network ensured safe conditions not only for the Lesser Kestrels, but also for other birds that use the power line elements as landing sites, rest spots, or even for nesting. Keywords: Electrical network, Falco naumanni, Lesser Kestrel, SPA Sakar

Ecological urbanism as a condition underpinning urban life for internally displaced peoples in Colombia.

This paper employs the concepts of sustainability and habitability to define and measure ecological urbanism in informal settlements founded by people who have been forcibly displaced by violence. The objective is to identify the obstacles in meeting the tenets of ecological urbanism in informal settlements. We offer primary research from La Primavera, an informal settlement founded by internally displaced people in the late 1970s, located in the corregimiento El Hatillo of Barbosa, Antioquia in northwestern Colombia. Primary research includes qualitative and quantitative data gathered through 72 surveys and 45 technical assessments of properties and houses in the settlement. Situated between the Aburrá River and the northbound highway, above a gas pipeline and under an electricity pylon, La Primavera exists in a state of extreme risk, exacerbated by increasing migration which threatens to exceed the carrying capacity of the territory. Moreover, in Article 35 of Law 388 of 1997, the territory was declared a protected or restricted area and earmarked for the development of the regional commuter train, called the Tren de Cercanías, in 2017. The case study highlights the contradictions in the development agenda in Colombia by showing how development projects designed for the economic betterment and environmental conservation of the region negatively impact the quality of life for the most vulnerable inhabitants and expose them to greater environmental, economic, and social risk.

Pulling the Plug on Eagle Electrocution in Israel: High-resolution Modelling of Bonelli’s Eagle Electrocution Risk

The Bonelli’s Eagle (Aquila fasciata) is a critically endangered species in Israel, with electrocution on power lines posing a serious threat on its population. Since insulation of electricity pylons is a slow and costly process, it is important to prioritize the insulation of the pylons in the network for quick and efficient mitigation of eagle mortality. To determine which pylons need to be retrofitted, we applied a three-stage Maximum Entropy Modeling process for identifying the risk factors among different environmental variables. The results show that the environmental feature with the highest correlation to electrocution events is the distance to water reservoirs, which are foraging hotspots of the eagles in Israel’s arid environment. Unfortunately, the only tall perch available for eagles in the vicinity of many of the reservoirs are the electricity pylons that power the reservoirs’ pumping facilities. This combination of anthropogenic alterations has apparently created a detrimental ecological trap. The strong attractiveness of water reservoirs for the eagles may explain the high level of selectivity that was calculated by the model, suggesting that retrofitting only 3.6% of the pylons in the network would achieve 77% reduction in eagles’ electrocution probability. Moreover, insulating pylons according to the model is expected to achieve a significant remedy for other avian species, among them the Eastern Imperial Eagles (Aquila heliaca) and White-Tailed Eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla). Synthesis and applications: The modeling process presented here yielded two electrocution risk maps, one of which is expected to facilitate properly prioritized mitigation of eagle electrocution in the existing power network of Israel, while the second map is designed to support an informed planning of new infrastructures. Applying this approach is expected to substantially aid the conservation of the population and allow it to recover to its initial size, which was three times its current size, about 70 years ago. The work presented here aims to prioritize the mitigation of raptor electrocution in arid and semi-arid areas, geographic zones that are largely under-studied in relation to this mortality factor. Electrocution in arid areas is of a particular concern in many developing countries, where networks of distribution lines are rapidly growing and raptor electrocution rate is high. The modeling approach presented in this study can be applied in these arid developing countries to mitigate raptor electrocution, aiding their conservation.

Status of the Saker Falcon in Hungary between 1980 and 2022

There is limited data available about the status of the Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) in Hungary before 1980. According to available sources, the species was a regular breeder in several habitat types, but was not common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The population decreased significantly through the 20th century falling to fewer than 50 pairs after World War II. The main reasons for the population decrease were DDT and widespread persecution (poisoning and shooting) of raptors by hunters. The species had reached the brink of extinction in Hungary by the 1970s. The Hungarian population of Saker Falcon is closely monitored and protected by MME BirdLife Hungary and the Hungarian National Park directorates’ ranger service over the last forty years. In the framework of Hungary’s national Saker Falcon conservation program, several significant actions have been undertaken: all potential breeding sites were surveyed, nest began to be formally guarded, artificial nests were installed on trees and high-voltage electric pylons, dangerous medium-voltage poles have been retrofitted with bird-friendly designs, and European Ground Squirrels (Spermophilus citellus) have been translocated to their former habitats. In addition, research activities including banding, GPStracking, and prey analyses have begun. The conservation program received significant support from WWF (1986–1990), the European Union’s LIFE Nature program (2016–2018), and the Hungarian government. Thanks to these varied and widespread efforts, the population started to increase slowly, but continuously between 1980 and 2010, with an average population growth rate was approximately 11% annually. The number of known nesting pairs has increased from eight pairs (1980) to 172 pairs (2010). Later population abundance showed fluctuating trends between 2011 and 2022, but remained more or less stable (143–185 pairs). The Hungarian population of Saker Falcons is estimated to be 180–200 nesting pairs. In 2022, 175 nesting pair were documented and 444 chicks fledged from 152 successful breeding attempts. A new EU funded “LIFE SakerRoads” project was launched in 2023 to increase the species’ population on the North-Hungarian Plain, where a significant decline was observed over the last decade.

The integration of morphological design and topology optimization to enhance the visual quality of electricity pylons

Purpose: This paper aims to enhance the visual quality of artificial above-ground structures, like pylons, masts, and towers of infrastructures and facilities, through a systematic design method for their morphological and structural optimization.Design/methodology/approach: The method achieves the functional and aesthetic goals based on the application of computer-aided tools. In particular, this is achieved according to three key steps:• Morphological development of landscape-related symbolism, environment, or culture and social needs.• Topology optimization of the design concept to reduce the structural weight and its visual impact.• Engineering of the resulting optimized structure.Practical implications: As a case study, the method is used for designing electricity pylons for the coastal territory of a Mediterranean European country, such as Italy. Citizens were involved during the identification phase of a symbolic shape for the concept development and during the final assessment phase.Research limitations/implications: The engineering phase has been performed by assembling standard lattice components with welded connections. Even if the use of this truss-like structure should lead to a minimum cost, the developed structure employs an additional 15%–20% of trusses and sheet metal covers the final cost is higher than a standard lattice pylon.Findings: The result is a structure with enhanced visual quality according to the international guidelines and fully complying with mandatory and functional requirements, such as regulatory and industrial feasibility, as well as those arising from social components.Originality/value: The method shows its potential in defining a custom design for lightweight structures with enhanced visual quality regarding the critical situation discussed here. The method considers both the subjective perception of citizens and their priorities and the landscape where the structures will be installed.

Forms of Life

AbstractThis essay discusses “Forms of Life” in two senses: first, infrastructure as a social process that fosters particular forms of collective life and second, the agency/vitality imputed to infrastructure. The essay considers an unremarked ambivalence in energy humanities about infrastructure: the extant infrastructure of fossil fuels poses an obstacle to energy transition, while the act of making infrastructure visible and “following the pipeline” is regarded by incisive petrocritics as necessary but insufficient. What do cooling towers, electric pylons, or railways make happen (or keep from happening), socially and narratively, when they “work” or when they're hacked? In other words, is there a narrative grammar of infrastructure? How much has to happen for nothing to happen? And how do cultural texts differ from built environments in thinking infrastructure as a form of life? China Miéville's story “Covehithe” mobilizes the literary imagination to depict sunken oil platforms as revenant and reproductive organisms that pose new questions about relationships among humans, nature, and technology, and about the care, responsibility, and politics such forms of life demand. This weird tale doubles as documentation of dead infrastructure: its platform characters are actual rigs that litter sea beds around the world. What imaginative or conceptual forms, then, can help us grasp infrastructure's forms of life? This question is particularly urgent with regard to fossil infrastructure, which here names not only infrastructure that processes, circulates, or depends on fossil fuels but also infrastructure that is archaic, obsolete, and otherwise tethered to the past, standing as an obstacle to transition.

Power Lines and Birds: Drivers of Conflict-Prone Use of Pylons by Nesting White Storks (Ciconia ciconia)

Energy infrastructure is expanding at a global scale and can represent a major threat to wildlife populations. Power lines are one of the main sources of human-induced avian mortality due to electrocution or collision, but many species use electricity pylons as a structure for nesting. Pylon nesting results in human-wildlife conflict because it can cause power outages and structural damage to power lines. The white stork (Ciconia ciconia) is a large-size semicolonial species that increasingly nests on pylons, causing growing operational and economic issues to power companies and energy consumers. In this study, the likelihood of problematic pylon use by nesting storks was predicted using a suite of explanatory variables related to the availability of foraging habitat and human disturbance. During a five-year period (2015–2019), we assessed the distribution of stork nests removed from the highly-risky top part of transmission pylons (220–400 kV) by power company technicians in South western Spain. A total of 839 nests were removed from 11% of the transmission pylons (n = 1196) during the study period. Pylon use intensified on pylons located near to landfills, surrounded by high proportion of grassland, and when close to freshwater sources (water body or river) and other occupied pylons. Human disturbance was unlikely to deter storks from using pylons and pylon use increased in urban areas. The approach used here to predict pylon use by nesting birds has applications for both human-wildlife conflict mitigation and conservation purposes where endangered species use human infrastructure. Power companies may use this kind of information to install anti-nesting devices (to reduce power outages and avian mortality or nesting platforms on suitable pylons (to promote pylons use by endangered species), and to account for the likelihood of conflict-prone use of pylons when siting future power lines.

SPH Modelling of a Dike Failure with Detection of the Landslide Sliding Surface and Damage Scenarios for an Electricity Pylon

The 3D SPH code SPHERA (RSE SpA) simulates the triggering and runout stages of a full-scale earth-filled dike failure with coastal flood. The code formulation is consistent with the Kinetic Theory of Granular Flow KTGF and requires no tuned input. The main Landslide Sliding Surface LSS within the dike is detected from the field of the quadratic invariant of the strain-rate tensor. The comparison with the experimental LSS position shows Maximum Gross Errors of 0.90m, in terms of depth difference at fixed planimetric point, and of 0.41m, in terms of LSS distance (i.e. 22% and 10% of the initial dike-top height over the excavation bottom). Inter-comparisons consider calibrated FEM results for the triggering stage. The LSS detection criterion is defined and verified via analytical solutions and code validations on spherical Couette flows. The impact on a virtual electricity pylon is assessed. The code improvements and tutorials are available at github.com.

Population, Distribution, Sub-species, Feeding and Breeding Biology of Black Kite: A Review

The black kite is a medium-sized raptor and widely distributed on all continents except Nearctic and Neo-tropic zone. It plays a crucial role in the ecosystem and maintains prey populations, especially for rodents. They preferred a wide variety of habitats, including open areas, grasslands, scattered vegetation, agricultural land and also adapted towards cities and towns. Black kite diets are extremely diverse; they typically consume grasshoppers, birds, rodents, bats and dead animal carcasses. A diet of black kite varies geographically and depends on the availability and abundance of prey population. The breeding season for black kites begins in March and lasts until April and also vary and depending on the subspecies. Black kites usually construct nest upon large trees, mobile tower and electric pylons. They generally utilise plant matter as nesting material, but sometime they also utilise clothes, paper and plastic. Population of black kite is declining due to poisoning by pesticides, lack of roosting and nesting sites, lack of prey availability and electrocutions. Environmental conditions such as extreme temperature, wind velocity and rainfall influence the daily activity and breeding biology of black kites. Habitat fragmentation, anthropogenic interference, deforestation, pesticide pollution and electrocutions cause negative impacts on raptor survival, including the black kite.

Of irrigation canals and multifunctional agroforestry: Traditional agriculture facilitates Woolly-necked Stork breeding in a north Indian agricultural landscape

Conservation of biodiversity alongside agriculture is now a global priority. Tree-nesting waterbirds have a tenuous relationship with farmlands because their survival requires farmers to retain trees and wetlands amid croplands. Research on such birds is rare on tropical and sub-tropical agricultural landscapes where high human densities and intensive farming ostensibly deteriorate breeding conditions. We explored breeding ecology and nest site selection by the single-nesting Woolly-necked Stork (Ciconia episcopus) in Haryana, north India using 298 nests from 166 locations discovered between 2016 and 2020. We determined the relative strengths of association of nest locations with natural features (trees, wetlands), human presence (habitation) and artificial water sources (irrigation canals) to understand cues used by breeding storks to situate nests. Woolly-necked Stork brood size from 42 successful nests was relatively high (3.1 ± 0.9 SD), with nests close to human habitation and wetlands having smaller broods. Storks showed high nest site fidelity (44.5% of sites used > 1 year), rarely nested on man-made structures (electricity pylons; 8.4%), and distributed nests in a clumped pattern. Woolly-necked Storks situated nests ambivalent to natural features but associated strongly with man-made features (positively with irrigation canals; negatively with human habitation). Contrary to expectations, most nests were not on the tallest trees but on the medium sized, native Dalbergia sissoo though storks situated nests on two tall trees (native Ficus religiosa and exotic Eucalyptus sp.) far more than the trees’ availability. All three tree species were favoured either for traditional agroforestry or local religious beliefs. Traditional agriculture in Haryana supported a substantial breeding population of Woolly-necked Storks facilitated by agriculture-related components rather than existing natural features. This novel scenario contradicts conventional narratives that suggest multi-season small holder tropical and sub-tropical agriculture degrades breeding conditions for waterbirds. Our findings in Haryana reiterate the need to assemble a diverse conservation toolkit of different locally relevant mechanisms supporting biodiversity amid cultivation.

Major threats to a migratory raptor vary geographically along the eastern Mediterranean flyway

The Convention of Migratory Species aims to protect migratory animals throughout their range, but efficient mitigation of threats facing migratory birds is hindered by poor knowledge about the magnitude and geographic range of threats. We used an expert assessment to prioritise which threats to mitigate in 13 countries along the eastern Mediterranean flyway to protect globally threatened Egyptian Vultures Neophron percnopterus. We informed this assessment by satellite tracking 71 birds to quantify where and how mortalities occurred, surveying 4216 km of powerlines to detect carcasses, conducting 910 interviews to quantify poison use, and by surveying markets and hunters to assess direct persecution. Mortality of 50 birds occurred in Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (44%), the Middle East (18%), and Africa (38%), and mortality causes varied geographically. Inadvertent poisoning resulting from rural stakeholders targeting predators occurred along most of the flyway. On the breeding grounds in eastern Europe and in Saudi-Arabia, poisoning and collision and electrocution are the priority threats to mitigate. Electrocution on small and poorly designed electricity pylons was the priority threat in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Ethiopia. Direct persecution for belief-based use of vulture products was the priority threat in Nigeria and Niger, while other illegal killing was the priority threat in Lebanon and Syria. Our work cannot quantify which threat has the greatest demographic impact on Egyptian Vultures. Nonetheless, because all threats we assessed are relevant for many other migratory birds, our assessment highlights the priority threats that range states need to address to protect migratory birds.

Disentangling drivers of power line use by vultures: Potential to reduce electrocutions

Accidents on power lines are the leading cause of mortality for many raptor species. In order to prioritise corrective measures, much effort has been focused on identifying the factors associated with collision and electrocution risk. However, most studies lack of precise data about the use of pylons and its underlying driving factors, often relying on biased information based on recorded fatalities.Here, we used multiple years of high-resolution data from 49-GPS tagged Canarian Egyptian Vultures (Neophron percnopterus majorensis) to overcome these typical biases. Birds of our target population use electric pylons extensively for perching (diurnal) and roosting (nocturnal), so accidents with these infrastructures are nowadays the main cause of mortality. Predictive models of pylon intensity of use were fitted for diurnal and nocturnal behaviour, accounting for power line, environmental, and individual vulture's features. Using these measures as a proxy for mortality risk, our model predictions were validated with out-of-sample data of actual mortality recorded during 17 years.Vultures used more pylons during daytime, but those chosen at night were used more intensively. In both time periods, the intensity of use of pylons was determined by similar drivers: vultures avoided pylons close to roads and territories of conspecifics, preferentially used pylons located in areas with higher abundance of food resources, and spread their use during the breeding season. Individuals used pylons unevenly according to their sex, age, and territorial status, indicating that site-specific mitigation measures may affect different fractions of the population.Our modelling procedures predicted actual mortality reasonably well, showing that prioritising mitigation measures on relatively few pylons (6%) could drastically reduce accidents (50%). Our findings demonstrate that combining knowledge on fine-scale individual behaviour and pylon type and distribution is key to target cost-effective conservation actions aimed at effectively reducing avian mortality on power lines.

High Voltages and Low Esthetic Standards: Three Design Principles to Humanize Electricity Pylons

“ Indeed, in my opinion the three most magnificent works of Rome, in which the greatness of her empire is best seen, are the aqueducts, the paved roads and the construction of the sewers .” –Dionysius of Halicarnassus [1]