Estimating the impact of airport wildlife hazards management on realized wildlife strike risk

Estimating the impact of airport wildlife hazards management on realized wildlife strike risk | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Estimating the impact of airport wildlife hazards management on realized wildlife strike risk Levi Altringer, Michael J. Begier, Jenny E. Washburn, Stephanie A. Shwiff This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4896332/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 22 Nov, 2024 Read the published version in Scientific Reports → Version 1 posted 8 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Collisions between wildlife and aircraft, commonly referred to as wildlife strikes or bird strikes, are rare events that pose considerable safety and economic risks to the aviation industry. Given the potentially dramatic consequences of such events, airports scheduled for passenger service are required to conduct wildlife hazard assessments and implement wildlife hazard management plans for the purpose of mitigating wildlife strike risk. The evaluation of such management, however, is complicated by imperfect reporting systems that mediate the relationship between realized wildlife strike risk and wildlife strike metrics. In this paper, we shed light on such phenomena by investigating the staggered adoption of a federal wildlife hazards management program at joint-use airports across the contiguous United States. This strategic research design allowed us to exploit variation in both management presence across airports, over time as well as variation in the quality of wildlife strike reporting within airports. As hypothesized, we found that wildlife hazards management intervention has a significant impact on the quality of reporting, as evidenced by a substantial increase in the number of civil strikes reported per 5,000 movements. Where pre-existing reporting mechanisms were more robust, however, we found that wildlife hazards management had a significant impact on realized wildlife strike risk as evidenced by a decrease in strike-induced costs to military aircraft. Overall, we found that estimated economic benefits of the studied airport wildlife hazards management program were 7 times greater than the costs over the management period. Our results have important implications for the measurement of wildlife strike risk and the management of wildlife hazards at airports, as well as important insights pertaining to the use of observational data for causal inference, particularly in the context of risk management. Biological sciences/Ecology/Environmental economics Earth and environmental sciences/Natural hazards Full Text Additional Declarations Competing interest reported. M.B. and J.W. are staff of the USDA-APHIS-WS Airport Wildlife Hazards Program, the management program analyzed in this study. L.A. and S.S. are economists employed by the USDA-APHIS-WS National Wildlife Research Center. Supplementary Files supplementaryinformation.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 22 Nov, 2024 Read the published version in Scientific Reports → Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 28 Oct, 2024 Reviews received at journal 27 Oct, 2024 Reviewers agreed at journal 11 Oct, 2024 Reviewers invited by journal 05 Sep, 2024 Editor assigned by journal 01 Sep, 2024 Editor invited by journal 23 Aug, 2024 Submission checks completed at journal 22 Aug, 2024 First submitted to journal 11 Aug, 2024 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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Given the potentially dramatic consequences of such events, airports scheduled for passenger service are required to conduct wildlife hazard assessments and implement wildlife hazard management plans for the purpose of mitigating wildlife strike risk. The evaluation of such management, however, is complicated by imperfect reporting systems that mediate the relationship between realized wildlife strike risk and wildlife strike metrics. In this paper, we shed light on such phenomena by investigating the staggered adoption of a federal wildlife hazards management program at joint-use airports across the contiguous United States. This strategic research design allowed us to exploit variation in both management presence across airports, over time as well as variation in the quality of wildlife strike reporting within airports. As hypothesized, we found that wildlife hazards management intervention has a significant impact on the quality of reporting, as evidenced by a substantial increase in the number of civil strikes reported per 5,000 movements. Where pre-existing reporting mechanisms were more robust, however, we found that wildlife hazards management had a significant impact on realized wildlife strike risk as evidenced by a decrease in strike-induced costs to military aircraft. Overall, we found that estimated economic benefits of the studied airport wildlife hazards management program were 7 times greater than the costs over the management period. Our results have important implications for the measurement of wildlife strike risk and the management of wildlife hazards at airports, as well as important insights pertaining to the use of observational data for causal inference, particularly in the context of risk management.","manuscriptTitle":"Estimating the impact of airport wildlife hazards management on realized wildlife strike risk","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2024-09-20 18:19:49","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4896332/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"decision","content":"Revision requested","date":"2024-10-28T10:29:57+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2024-10-27T23:38:30+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"78661643600092511246225259010724306113","date":"2024-10-11T15:34:57+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2024-09-06T02:23:00+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2024-09-02T02:50:08+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvited","content":"","date":"2024-08-23T15:14:11+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2024-08-22T13:27:38+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Scientific Reports","date":"2024-08-11T18:06:43+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"scientific-reports","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"scirep","sideBox":"Learn more about [Scientific Reports](http://www.nature.com/srep/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Scientific Reports","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Scientific Reports","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"692797de-0dce-44a4-8164-31c46d92264c","owner":[],"postedDate":"September 20th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"published-in-journal","subjectAreas":[{"id":37728134,"name":"Biological sciences/Ecology/Environmental economics"},{"id":37728135,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Natural hazards"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2024-11-25T16:05:27+00:00","versionOfRecord":{"articleIdentity":"rs-4896332","link":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-79946-3","journal":{"identity":"scientific-reports","isVorOnly":false,"title":"Scientific Reports"},"publishedOn":"2024-11-22 15:58:12","publishedOnDateReadable":"November 22nd, 2024"},"versionCreatedAt":"2024-09-20 18:19:49","video":"","vorDoi":"10.1038/s41598-024-79946-3","vorDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-79946-3","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-4896332","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-4896332","identity":"rs-4896332","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"qtupq5eGEP_6zYnWcrvyt","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}