Identifying viewshed: New approaches to visual impact assessment

Location of a wind farm needs a visual impact assessment procedure considering different points of view, such as natural-environmental sides and landscape aspects. About the first point, used evaluation approaches are nearly consolidated in literature. Instead, debate is still open on what concerns the second point, especially on establishing an as objective and effective as possible method. Some instruments already exist, such as viewshed analysis (single, multiple, cumulative, identifying), allowing to follow step by step visual evaluation by supporting wind farm location process from site choice to single turbine location. Consequently, this paper aims to implement an open source model to identify a wind farm in Laurenzana municipality (Basilicata, southern Italy). © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.