Geomatics to Support the Environmental Impact Assessment in Renewable Energy Plants Installation

摘要

Projections to 2020 indicate that renewable energy sources (RES) could cover, from 20 to 30 percent of the world's energy needs. To implement an effective e-governance in this direction, it is necessary to implement new methodologies to support decision-making in the local energy planning. The environmental impact is one of the main concern existing at different levels, in addition to the growing soil consumption in Europe. A significant problem for some types of plants, mainly solar and wind power, is the interaction of the devices with the surrounding environment, with possible negative effects in terms of visual impact and soil consumption. It is, therefore, very important to define which weight can have different impacts and to consider all possible scenarios. This work proposes a methodology to investigate, through some specific indicators, these impacts and to support territorial planning processes for the best choice of supply from RES. The processing of geospatial data and environmental information, collected at different scales, has been conducted through the use of GIS tools, allowing the implementation of a criticality index, as an indicator related to weight of the impacts that the construction of RES plants can have on the surrounding environmental features.