Authors of a recent article published in the journal Science studied 2,344 counties in China between 2014 and 2023 to assess the relationship between the stringency of solar energy expansion policies and bird species diversity. Drawing on official documents and data from bird observation centres (see also Meng et al. 2025; Sun et al. 2022), the researches claim that the impact of solar panels on birdlife has been severe, with their habitats, nesting sites, feeding grounds and stopover sites taken over by solar farms.
China is building solar farms at a faster rate than any other country, in its quest to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. According to the authors of the study, in 2024 there were an estimated 4,520 km² of solar farms in China – an area equivalent to that of the US state of Rhode Island. Consequently, there the negative impacts of such parks become apparent quicker and more severely than elsewhere. The authors note that the stricter the solar energy policy, the more severe the impact on birds – in other words, “clean energy leaves a huge ecological footprint on nature.” Bird diversity has declined in the vicinity of large solar parks primarily due to “changes in land use”, by which the researchers refer to the vast fields of solar panels covering enormous areas previously employed for agriculture or at times even established as nature reserves.
The authors describe this as “inferior greening” (see also Voigt et al. 2019; Tinsley et al. 2024; Pörtner et al. 2023), in which solar panels reduce the diversity of surrounding vegetation and create dense but ecologically homogeneous cover. These effects are particularly severe in areas that are naturally rich in biodiversity. In areas that are relatively “poorer” in biodiversity, e.g. naturally arid landscapes, the impact of solar parks is less noticeable, for there the birdlife may have already adapted to open environments and is therefore less sensitive to the habitat changes caused by solar parks.
The overall estimation is nonetheless that landscapes altered by solar panels have catastrophic consequences for birds, insects and other animals that are unable to make good use of the new, homogeneous vegetation. Solar panels fragment landscapes (see also Capellán-Pérez et al. 2017; Hernandez et al. 2014; Pimm et al. 2014), cause visual and thermal disturbances (see also Fleming 2025; Khan et al. 2024) and destroy bird habitats (see also Rehbein et al. 2020). Significant declines in abundance were thus recorded for both migratory and resident birds.
Resident birds were most affected by the transformation of their habitats, while migratory birds were most affected by changes to key stopover sites. The bird species that suffered most were those that nest in vegetation and require a complex vegetation structure for cover, as well as carnivorous or omnivorous birds that depend on invertebrate prey supported by old-growth vegetation. Herbivorous birds, by contrast, can even adapt to dense ground cover, which is why the abundance of these species did not decline significantly. For flocking birds, however, the panels caused the so-called “lake effect,” whereby the birds became disoriented by light reflected from the solar panels, mistaking it for sunlight reflecting off water. This led to fatal collisions, with birds searching in vain for lakes and ponds that did not exist.