Exploitation of renewable energy sources and sustainable management of the territory: Wind farms in Regione Liguria

The need to enhance the exploitation of renewable energy resources marked the starting point in the development of wind farms, also in Regione Liguria. However, the Ligurian sites that are suitable from an anemometric point of view are very exposed and are also of outstanding natural value. In order to simplify procedures and to apply high environmental protection levels, some project requirements and requested mitigation and compensation actions were fixed. Some criteria were stated to identify the areas that are unsuitable to wind installations because of their landscape or wildlife characteristics. By using the GIS of the Regione Liguria, a dedicated information system describing the unsuitable areas was produced; the system is made by a synoptic layer that merges all the areas where at least one of the penalising factors is fulfilled, in addition to single layers that keep their own information content. The map is available on the Internet (www.regione.liguria.it), and it represents an essential reference for any upcoming measures in the field of wind energy exploitation.