Floating Wetland Habitats: Conceptual Design and Analysis of Enhanced Global Flyway Potential
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Baumeister, Joerg
Giurgiu, Ioana C
Ottmann, Daniela A
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Abstract
Migratory birds play a key role in sustaining global biodiversity, providing services that support human and ecosystem processes across various global stopover locations. Providing a diverse array of food sources and shelter, wetland ecosystems represent primary stopover sites for migratory waterbirds. The consistent global decline of wetland habitats has had significant effects on migratory bird populations, having the potential to trigger trophic cascades. At the same time, floating roosts have shown great potential for expanding migratory bird resting zones in areas where natural habitats are affected by anthropogenic activities. These structures are generally located in proximity to natural foraging grounds and provide extended resting areas during high tide. This chapter provides an analysis of the potential benefits that could be offered by larger-scale artificial floating wetland habitats, that could be located further offshore along global flyways. It identifies ideal conditions and global locations that could accommodate such structures, developing conceptual design configurations by merging existing floating and habitat restoration technologies to derive three artificial stopover configurations that can support various stopover functions for migratory birds. The potential for enhancing global flyways by use of these artificial roosts is analyzed in terms of possible ecological and economic impacts.
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Amphibious Concepts at the Edge of the Sea
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1st
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Giurgiu, IC, Floating Wetland Habitats: Conceptual Design and Analysis of Enhanced Global Flyway Potential, Amphibious Concepts at the Edge of the Sea, 2025, 1st, pp. 69-89