Abstract Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) that are applied in the planning phases of large land-use and construction projects are aimed at aiding decision-making and mitigating significant environmental impacts. In light of the global biodiversity crisis, conducting high-quality biodiversity impact assessments is important, as biodiversity information, among other factors, has the potential to influence how projects will be implemented in the end. We investigated the biodiversity and bird surveys conducted and the number of bird species of conservation concern in peat extraction and wind farm projects to which an EIA was applied to in 1995–2016 in Finland and compared whether these factors differed between the project types and between implemented and unimplemented projects. We also studied the availability of follow-up monitoring data of biodiversity impacts within the two project types. The number of nationally threatened breeding birds was significantly lower in implemented than in unimplemented peat extraction projects. The overall probability of being implemented was significantly negatively associated with the year the EIA began for both project types. All permitted peat extraction projects and 22% of wind farm projects conducted post-construction biodiversity monitoring; however, only some projects enabled before-after comparisons. Our results are in line with earlier findings that demonstrate the difficulty of showing the direct impacts of biodiversity information on EIA decision-making and to what extent it is related to project approval or rejection. The role of follow-up monitoring in the EIA and project development could also be strengthened.

中文翻译：

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芬兰环境影响评估和后续监测中的生物多样性和鸟类调查

摘要 在大型土地利用和建设项目的规划阶段应用的环境影响评估 (EIA) 旨在帮助决策和减轻重大环境影响。鉴于全球生物多样性危机，进行高质量的生物多样性影响评估非常重要，因为生物多样性信息等因素有可能影响项目的最终实施方式。我们调查了 1995 年至 2016 年在芬兰应用 EIA 的泥炭开采和风电场项目中进行的生物多样性和鸟类调查以及受保护的鸟类数量，并比较了这些因素在项目类型之间和实施项目之间是否存在差异。和未实施的项目。我们还研究了两种项目类型内生物多样性影响的后续监测数据的可用性。已实施的国家受威胁种鸟数量明显低于未实施的泥炭开采项目。实施的总体可能性与这两种项目类型的环境影响评估开始年份呈显着负相关。所有获准的泥炭开采项目和 22% 的风电场项目都进行了建设后生物多样性监测；但是，只有一些项目启用了前后比较。我们的结果与早期的发现一致，这些发现表明生物多样性信息对 EIA 决策的直接影响以及它在多大程度上与项目批准或拒绝相关。