TY - JOUR TI - Environmental management framework for wind farm siting: Methodology and case study AU - Tegou, L AU - Polatidis, H AU - Haralambpoulos, D T2 - Journal of Environmental Management AB - This paper develops an integrated framework to evaluate land suitability for wind farm siting that combines multi-criteria analysis (MCA) with geographical information systems (GIS); an application of the proposed framework for the island of Lesvos, Greece, is further illustrated. A set of environmental, economic, social, and technical constraints, based on recent Greek legislation, identifies the potential sites for wind power installation. Furthermore, the area under consideration is evaluated by a variety of criteria, such as wind power potential, land cover type, electricity demand, visual impact, land value, and distance from the electricity grid. The pair-wise comparison method in the context of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to estimate the criteria weights in order to establish their relative importance in site evaluation. The overall suitability of the study region for wind farm siting is appraised through the weighted summation rule. Results showed that only a very small percentage of the total area of Lesvos could be suitable for wind farm installation, although favourable wind potential exists in many more areas of the island. DA - 2010/11// PY - 2010 VL - 91 IS - 11 SP - 2134 EP - 2147 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479710001398 DO - 10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.05.010 LA - English KW - Wind Energy KW - Land-Based Wind KW - Human Dimensions KW - Social & Economic Data ER -