Planning Land-Use Change for Biomass-Fuelled Energy-Production Plants: Spatial Analyses Applied to the Case of Sardinia, Italy

Land use change in Sardinia is a delicate problem. On the one side, the Regional Landscape Plan, the main landscape planning tool adopted on the Island, pays great attention to landscape protection, by means of strict constraints and directives for the land management. On the other side, the Regional Energy Plan drives towards the diversification of energy sources and, in particular, of renewable energy sources. Actions directed to the development of RES based energy production may lead to discover conflicts between the two plans, especially when the associated land use changes affect landscapes. After the background above, the aim of this paper is to present a method able to support decisions regarding the development of a biomass supply chain, which does not compromise landscape values of Sardinia.