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Incorporating detectability of threatened species into environmental impact assessment Garrard, G, Bekessy, S, McCarthy, M and Wintle, B 2015, 'Incorporating detectability of threatened species into environmental impact assessment', Conservation Biology, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 216-225. Document type: Journal Article Collection: Journal Articles Attached Files Name Description MIMEType Size n2006051838.pdf Accepted Manuscript application/pdf 639.72KB Title Incorporating detectability of threatened species into environmental impact assessment Author(s) Garrard, G Bekessy, S McCarthy, M Wintle, B Year 2015 Journal name Conservation Biology Volume number 29 Issue number 1 Start page 216 End page 225 Total pages 10 Publisher Blackwell Publishing Inc. Abstract Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a key mechanism for protecting threatened plant and animal species. Many species are not perfectly detectable and, even when present, may remain undetected during EIA surveys, increasing the risk of site-level loss or extinction of species. Numerous methods now exist for estimating detectability of plants and animals. Despite this, regulations concerning survey protocol and effort during EIAs fail to adequately address issues of detectability. Probability of detection is intrinsically linked to survey effort; thus, minimum survey effort requirements are a useful way to address the risks of false absences. We utilized 2 methods for determining appropriate survey effort requirements during EIA surveys. One method determined the survey effort required to achieve a probability of detection of 0.95 when the species is present. The second method estimated the survey effort required to either detect the species or reduce the probability of presence to 0.05. We applied these methods to Pimelea spinscens subsp. spinescens, a critically endangered grassland plant species in Melbourne, Australia. We detected P. spinescens in only half of the surveys undertaken at sites where it was known to exist. Estimates of the survey effort required to detect the species or demonstrate its absence with any confidence were much higher than the effort traditionally invested in EIA surveys for this species. We argue that minimum survey requirements be established for all species listed under threatened species legislation and hope that our findings will provide an impetus for collecting, compiling, and synthesizing quantitative detectability estimates for a broad range of plant and animal species. Subject Land Use and Environmental Planning Environmental Impact Assessment Keyword(s) Biological surveys False absence Pimelea spinescens Time to detection DOI - identifier 10.1111/cobi.12351 Copyright notice © 2014 Society for Conservation Biology ISSN 0888-8892 Related Links Link Description http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12351 Link to Published Version   Versions Version Filter Type Tue, 02 Jun 2015, 10:06:53 EST Fri, 11 Aug 2017, 11:08:50 EST Fri, 11 Aug 2017, 11:12:24 EST Thu, 25 Oct 2018, 13:03:02 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 10 times in Thomson Reuters Web of Science Article | Citations Cited 9 times in Scopus Article | Citations Altmetric details: Access Statistics: 232 Abstract Views, 4 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Tue, 02 Jun 2015, 09:02:00 EST by Catalyst Administrator