Here’s how the Central Great Plains wind energy team created a business-as-usual map

To cre­ate a busi­ness as usu­al map (Fig­ure 11), the team did an over­lay exer­cise, ask­ing where pro­ject­ed wind devel­op­ment is like­ly to occur if no new strat­e­gy is advanced, and where that devel­op­ment inter­sects with sen­si­tive habi­tat areas. Eco­log­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive areas were mapped for the study region (Okla­homa, Kansas, and a small por­tion of Texas). These includ­ed threat­ened and endan­gered species, species at par­tic­u­lar risk from wind devel­op­ment (bats), rare habi­tat, and the most intact exam­ples of ‘matrix’ habi­tat (grass­lands). These are areas where wind devel­op­ment would com­pro­mise con­ser­va­tion goals through direct mor­tal­i­ty of species, or impacts to habi­tat due to both direct habi­tat destruc­tion and frag­men­ta­tion and indi­rect effects such as species avoid­ing suit­able habi­tat due to dis­tur­bance caused by ener­gy development.