A GIS-BASED MULTI-CRITERIA APPROACH TO IDENTIFY SUITABLE LOCATIONS FOR BIOMASS ENERGY-FACILITIES. THE CASE STUDY OF THE FOGGIA PROVINCE.

摘要

a wide set of multiple economic, social and environmental factors are generally involved in the choiceof suitable locations for biomass energy plants. Feasible alternatives with respect to specific issues should beproposed and evaluated. The purpose of this work is to point out a methodology that, according to a specific set ofcriteria, identifies and delimits the most suitable geographic areas to be addressed as proper location of a bio-energyplant. A case study was developed with specific reference to the Foggia Province, a large agricultural district in theApulia region (South East of Italy). Residues from winter cereal crops, olive grove and vineyard pruning were thebiomass feedstock considered. This kind of biomass resources is largely available in the area, showing quite highaverage values of spatial density (approximately 30-70 t km-2) but considerably variable among different areas of thesame district. An Analytic Hierarchy Process-Ordered Weighted Averaging (AHP-OWA) was applied through theuse of the FLOWA software (Fuzzy Linguistic-OWA). This tool applies fuzzy quantifiers within ArcGIS, allowing amulti-criteria decision analysis, a land clustering procedure useful to decide the location of energy plants, asupporting land information system for energy planning.