Energyscapes: Developing a Multiscalar Systemic Approach to Assess the Environmental, Social and Economic Impact of Renewable Energy Systems on Landscape

Abstract

The drive for sustainable energy production is leading to an increased deployment of land based renewable systems which have acquired a widespread and relevant role in the transformation of landscape, sensibly affecting its perception by people and therefore eventually finding resistance at a local level. Within this context it is important to define landscape as “an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors”, according to the European Landscape Convention (Florence, 20.X.2000) and to envisage renewable energy systems as encompassing devices for production transportation and stocking of energy. Hence the impact of energy devices on landscape is multifaceted: including visible and invisible factors, large and small scale consequences, environmental, social, political and economic issues, involving stakeholders at different levels and, moreover, resulting in short and long term effects and thus requiring time to be considered as a fundamental variable. The complexity of the topic is though too often overlooked by unilateral perspectives traditionally adopted in the contexts of both policies and research. The aim of this work is therefore to develop a multidisciplinary, multi-scalar, systemic methodology which embraces the mainstream sectional approaches in an integrated multi-criteria analysis of the impact of the energy devices on landscape. Two case studies are disclosed to present the relevance of the methodology applied on different typologies and contexts. Innovative aspects comprise the drafting of criteria and guidelines to evaluate and select best practices.