The Design and Application of a Regional Management Model to Set Up Wind Farms and the Adaptation to Climate Change Effects—Case of La Coruña (Galicia, Northwest of Spain)

• Published in: Land (Basel) 2024-12, Vol.13 (12), p.2201
• Main Authors: Valle, Blanca, Velázquez, Javier, Gülçin, Derya, Herráez, Fernando, Özcan, Ali Uğur, Hernando, Ana, Rincón, Víctor, Castanho, Rui Alexandre, Çiçek, Kerim
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accelerated tests; Air-turbines; Alternative energy sources; Biodiversity; Buildings and facilities; Carrying capacity; Climate adaptation; Climate change; Climate effects; Climatic changes; Clustering; Coastal zone; Conservation; Cultural characteristics; Demand analysis; Energy conservation; Energy consumption; Energy demand; Energy industry; Energy resources; Energy transition; Environmental impact; Environmental risk; Geographic information systems; Geospatial data; Infrastructure; Land use; Landscape preservation; management categories; Multiple criteria decision making; Multiple criterion; Natural resources; Planning; Population biology; Population dynamics; Population studies; priority areas; Remote sensing; Renewable energy; Renewable resources; risk; Risk levels; Site selection; Soil conservation; Spain; Spatial analysis; Sustainability; Sustainable energy; Territorial behavior; Variables; Vegetation; Weather; Wind effects; Wind farms; Wind measurement; Wind power; Wind turbines
• ISSN: 2073-445X; 2073-445X
• DOI: 10.3390/land13122201

The implantation of wind farms in the European territory is being deployed at an accelerated pace. In the proposed framework, the province of La Coruña in the autonomous community of Galicia is tested, with a wide deployment of this type of infrastructure in the territory initiated in the 80s, representing the third autonomous community with the largest exploitation of wind resources, which provides sufficient information, extrapolated to the entire community, to demonstrate the practical usefulness and potential of the method of obtaining the territorial model proposed in this article The regional has been used as the basic administrative subunit of the study variables, considering that the territory thus delimited could have common physical and cultural characteristics. The methodology presented in this article involves the collection and processing of public cartographic data on various factors most repeatedly or agreed upon in the consulted bibliography based on studies by experts in the technical, environmental, and environmental areas, including explanatory variables of risk in a broader context of climate change as the first contribution of this study. Another contribution is the inclusion in the model of the synergistic impact measured as the distance to wind farms in operation (21% of the total area of the sample) to which an area of influence of 4 times the rotor diameter of each of the wind turbines im-planted has been added as a legal and physical restriction. On a solid basis of selection of explanatory variables and with the help of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and multi-criteria analysis (MCDM), techniques widely documented in the existing literature for the determination of optimal areas for the implementation of this type of infrastructure, a methodological proposal is presented for the development of a strategic, long-term territorial model, for the prioritization of acceptable areas for the implementation of wind farms, including forecasts of increased energy demand due to the effect of climate change and the population dynamics of the study region that may influence energy consumption. This article focuses on the use of multivariate clustering techniques and spatial analysis to identify priority areas for long-term sustainable wind energy projects. With the proposed strategic territorial model, it has been possible to demonstrate that it is not only capable of discriminating between three categories of acceptable areas for the i