Assessment of forest disturbance and soil erosion in wind farm project using satellite observations

The construction of wind farms, involving road construction and wind turbine installation, severely disrupts natural landscapes. Wind energy expansion in global forested areas has unclear impacts on local forests and ecosystem services. Due to a lack of information on internal road distribution and deployment dates, few studies have assessed forest disturbances caused by wind farms. Environmental issues like vegetation destruction and soil erosion may be overlooked. To address this, we integrated multi-source spaceborne observations to identify deployment dates and road distributions of forest wind farms and mapped related forest disturbances and soil erosion changes. Six global locations were tested, showing over 80 % accuracy. Disturbance intensity ranged from 1.5 to 6.5 ha/MW, with NDVI decreasing by 0.03 to 0.33 in disturbed forest regions. The average soil erosion increase per unit area due to road construction ranged from 24.74 to 274.33 t/hm⁻¹ a⁻¹, while wind turbine construction caused an average soil erosion increase ranging from 26.52 to 26.52 to 263.46 t/hm⁻¹ a⁻¹. Road construction is the primary cause of forest disturbance, with greater soil erosion increases in mountainous than in plain forests. This method enhances monitoring and understanding of wind farms' environmental impacts.