D01

Research Abstracts on Spatial Information Science
CSIS DAYS 2017

Onshore Wind Farms Suitability Analysis Using Spatial Analytic Hierarchy Process:A case study of Fukushima prefecture, Japan
Ahmed Derdouri
Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan.
Contact address: <ahmed.derdouri@gmail.com>(1) Motivation: Fukushima was the most damaged
prefecture by the nuclear crisis as a result of thepowerful earthquake of March 2011. Its government
adopted a strategy to focus on renewable energy todrive its energy structure into a safer and more selfsufficient status. Wind energy stands firm as one of
the important renewable energy sources in Japan andplays an important role regarding energy vision goalsof Fukushima prefectural government. However,various obstacles are on the way of such approach,mainly because the dispersal of onshore wind farms
implies many negative impacts on the environment
as well as the communities neighboring suchfacilities. The aim of this study is to develop a
Geographical Information System (GIS) model toidentify and evaluate the optimal locations for thesiting of onshore wind facilities that combines multicriteria analysis with geographical information
systems.
(2) Methodology: The model incorporates a set ofenvironmental, economic and social criteria. Using a
newly designed and developed web application, weapply the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), wherea group of wind energy experts and stakeholders wasasked the pairwise comparison of the criteria in orderto judge their relative importance in site evaluation.
The methodological framework applied in this study
is illustrated in Figure 1. Adapted from Tegou (2010),
the methodology main idea is to identify and extract
two areas: excluded and rated. The first one refers tothe area which will be excluded from the analysis due
to unsuitability based on factual or legal reasons such

Figure 1: Methodology

as urban areas, water bodies and natural parks. The
former corresponds to a spatially rated area based on
key criteria for finding optimal wind farm sites. Valuescores will be assigned to each criterion based on
experts’ survey results using AHP approach.
(3) Results: Figure 2 shows the exclusion area. After theexclusion of the restricted areas, approximately 11%of the area remains available for wind energy
development, which corresponds to 1,564 km² (out ofa total size of 13,780 km²). The 3 existing wind farms
are all located outside the restricted area.
(4) Future directions: Using the newly developed
website ahpcalculator.com, an undergoing experts’survey will be used to calculate the weights of eachcriterion and subsequently extract the rated area.
(5) Data:
All GIS data used in this study werecollected from Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,
Transport and Tourism unless otherwise specified.
・ Wind Data: dat files of 500 m mesh. Source:NEDO;・ Electricity network: kmz file Source: Fukushima
power generation Co., Ltd.;・ Road Network: GSI of Japan;
・ Slope: Source: SRTM;(6) Acknowledgments: I would like to thank mysupervisor, Prof. Yuji Murayama, for the patient
guidance, encouragement and advice.
(7) References:
Tegou, L. I., Polatidis, H., & Haralambopoulos, D. A.
(2010). Environmental management framework forwind farm siting: Methodology and case study.
Journal of Environmental Management,91(11),2134-2147.

- 42 -Figure 2: Excluded area