Page - 159 - in Clean Water Using Solar and Wind - Outside the Power Grid

© 2019 The Author. This is an Open Access book chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits copying and redistribution for non-commercial purposes with no derivatives, provided the original work is properly cited (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). This does not affect the rights licensed or assigned from any third party in this book. The chapter is from the book Clean Water Using Solar and Wind: Outside the Power Grid, Gustaf Olsson (Author). doi: 10.2166/9781780409443_0159 Chapter 13 Land use for energy “Changes in land use associated with energy development can have a significant impact on the quality of the physical, social, economic, and visual environment. Local air quality, water quality, water availability, noise levels, the municipal tax base, land values, job opportunities, and the character of the community itself may be affected.” US Department of Energy Report about land use and energy in 1975. Land use is a crucial issue when addressing the energy-water-food nexus. The competition for land is apparent in several ways. The world is facing increasing food demands due to both increasing average incomes and the rise in population. At the same time, it is feared that the agriculture yield will drop because of water scarcity. It is argued that solar PV and wind power may require fertile land and consequently threaten food production. On the contrary, solar PV provides a large benefit by using not land but spare rooftops. The land area requirements for different types of electricity generation can be compared (Olsson, 2015). Large hydropower requires a certain area for the reservoir. Often there is a multi-purpose reservoir, used for water storage and flood protection besides hydropower. For wind power the total area enclosed by the site boundary is defined as the land use, although the area between the towers can often still be Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/ebooks/book-pdf/520710/wio9781780409443.pdf by IWA Publishing user