The assessment of aesthetic and perceptual aspects within environmental impact assessment of renewable energy projects in Italy

Themain aimof this paper is to explore howperceptual and aesthetic impact analyses are considered in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), with specific reference to Italian renewable energy projects. To investigate this topic, the paper starts by establishingwhich factors are linkedwith perceptual and aesthetic impacts andwhy it is important to analyze these aspects,which are also related to legislative provisions and procedures in Europe and in Italy. In particular the paper refers to renewable energy projects because environmental policies are encouraging more and more investment in this kind of primary resource. The growing interest in this type of energy is leading to the realization of projects which change the governance of territories, with inevitable effects on the landscape fromthe aesthetic and perceptual points of view. Legislative references to EIA, including the latest directive regarding this topic show the importance of integrating the assessment of environmental and perceptual impacts, thus there is a need to improve EIA methodological approaches to this purpose. This paper proposes a profile of aesthetic and perceptual impact analysis in EIA for renewable energy projects in Italy, and concludes with recommendations as to how this kind of analysis could be improved.