How Much Longer Can We Tolerate Further Loss of Farmland Without Proper Planning? The Agrivoltaic Case in the Apulia Region (Italy)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript offers insight to a topical concern of energy transitions – the capacity to accommodate the forms of restructure required in electricity generation, both as a socio-economic and land use process.  The capacity for accommodating large scale landscape and network changes needed for emerging electricity generation system is evident in many locations, as identified in the manuscript.  Essentially, this manuscript offers a methodology for assessing land use and locational capacity for increasing electricity generation in the landscape through photovoltaic array, an increasingly common technology.  In this regard, the manuscript offers a framework for assessing capacity in the landscape, however, I consider that a number of issues need resolution prior to publication:

 

• There is a range of issues that need to be clarified with regard to the scope and intent of the modelling and analysis – is this intended to offer scope for PV placement in rural landscapes? Is it intended to simply reveal the possible scale of a future roll-out of PV arrays?  Is it intending to be sufficiently fine-grained to differentiate farming systems (cropping, grazing etc) and the consequent yield and impact of future PV investment?  Each of these issues may be addressed in scoping the work, or in amending the model.  At present it is not clear what those limitations are, and consequently there appears to be missing elements regarding the potential scope (and likely desirability) of PV placement. 
• This in turn raises a second question that is un-answered – would PV on ‘un-used’ (or even ‘under-utilised’) former agricultural land actually be classified as ‘agrivoltaics’, or simply a new rural land use? (assuming no additional agriculture is established after the PV investment). Some commentary on this may be useful.
• The paper is framed as addressing agrivoltaics, but essentially it is about solar PV in farming areas – that should be explained early in the paper as there are several potential agrivoltaics systems (wind turbines, solar turbines, biogas and others). For example, p2 line 63 – refers to Agrivoltaics as ‘a’ system, yet it is evidently multiple systems (not only solar PV) in practice. This assumption is then reflected in several places in the manuscript.
• The constraints discussed in the method relate essentially to environmental or cultural constraints (note: the paper regularly refers to constraints as ‘constrains’ – this should be changed) there is little, or no discussion of the limits presented by farming systems. In fact it is unclear what farming system are prominent in Apulia, and which would be compatible with solar PV (whether as co-existing with grazing as is the case in many locations, or as protected structures for various cropping – as is hinted on page 2). 
• It seems important that something about the land use and agricultural systems in Apulia is included in the introduction and discussion, or ideally as a specific elements of the spatial model. It is notable that discussions refer to international examples of limitations on PV placement, including in areas where farming will be affected, rather than complemented, by PV.  While it is evident that the situation is unclear in the case location, some commentary on agricultural land use activities that should be excluded would be helpful, as clearly not all farming system would benefit from significant PV coverage, whether in individual properties, or in areas where farming systems would be diluted or at risk of wholesale land use change.  The assumption that only high value land should be excluded is perhaps reasonable, but in many instances this is more about the nature of cultural or economic systems (land holdings, complementary farming systems and processing etc) and this deserves some commentary.
• The projections included in Section 3 are generally unclear. It appears that the assumption is that, with all possible locations understood and targets in place, installations will increase to over 10GW by 2030 in the case study region?  The idea that this trend line is established through this work is not evident in the spatial analysis conducted.  Is this graph useful, or would a model that simply shows the potential contribution to the regional (or even national) energy transformation of land use change.  The forecasting of the trend is probably not necessary, and it would be interesting to know if 2022-25 establishments, or even proposals for new solar PV in the region are actually occurring?
• Finally, I comment on the question in the original title regarding tolerating loss of farmland. The crucial idea here is that planning for farmland loss can be addressed through the complementary use of land as solar PV and On the surface this seems a good proposition, but was it answered?  Can it be (or is it simply rhetorical)? The critical issue here seems to be the detail of the model which is in part lacking – the economic drivers for change from farming to ‘unused’ and potentially to energy production.  This seems a wise policy aim, but the nuanced nature of farm systems and their relationship to local economies deserves consideration and commentary. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The conflict between energy and food may be reduced, but the impact of these installations on the landscape remains, and community discontent and unrest are on the rise. 
These land-use conflicts and impacts recall the need for rigorous spatial planning which must play a leading role in managing this transition. 
Prior to planning, the availability of resources should be known and evaluated in the paper.

1. Introduction : A clear research question needs to be formulated here.

2. The introduction is too lengthy and it is recommended to be concise.

3. What is the role"2.2. Past and future of solar energy in the Apulia region" in Section 2?

4.Discussion: In the discussion section, please respond to the research question and the contributions and shortcomings of this article.

At present, almost all of the findings are found here, and the statements are lengthy and confusing.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this study, a GIS-based territorial analysis was carried out to identify and quantify eligible land areas for the installation of renewable energy systems in the Apulia region (southern Italy), taking into account a series of specified land protection criteria, restrictions and constraints as provided by national and regional legislation. This procedure has apparently never been applied before. It answers an essential and unavoidable question: how much land do we have potentially at our disposal for the installation of renewable energy systems, while safeguarding the land that, for various reasons, is the most sensitive or valuable and must therefore be excluded? Then, the study focused specifically on AV systems that, for obvious reasons, can only be installed on agricultural land. The unconstrained agricultural area that could therefore be used for AV systems and that also met certain selective requirements was calculated. The applied criteria were related to land capability and certain technical feasibility characteristics in order to quantify the area of potential land specifically available for AV systems. lastly, it was examined what could be the effective contribution of the Apulia Region and its provinces to the fulfillment of the so-called "burden share", i.e. the total capacity for AV installations, assuming that a certain percentage of agricultural land would be dedicated to this type of energy use. Overall, this is a comprehensive study regarding the correlation between the energy production and food production. I would like to recommend it for publication after minor revision:

1) INTRODUCTION part: The novelty of this study should be highlighted. What are the differences between previous reports and the current study? What is the novelty of this work? These two aspects should be clearly presented in the introduction part. I would like to suggest the authors to thoroughly re-survey literatures, and make a thorough background review.

2) This is a case study focuses mainly on Apulia region (Italy). Can the findings be generalized to other area? The author should give an outlook and comment on this issue.

3) Conclusion part: The author should clearly state what the conclusion that can be drowned from this study. Meanwhile, the future development in the research filed is suggested to be outlooked and commented.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1)    The abstract section needs revision - An abstract should be a short summary of your manuscript - the essence, arguments, key results, etc.
2)    Revise rows 28-30: "Pressures undermining ..............." There isn't a connection with the above text.
3)    Remove “GIS (Geographic Information System)” from the keywords. I recommend “GIS-based territorial analysis”.
4)    The introductory section is correctly based on many European and national strategic documents. But I recommend expanding it with an analysis of scientific publications related to the choice of energy sources for powering agricultural sites. For example, https://doi.org/10.3390/en17174357, https://doi.org/10.3390/en14248240.
5)    Row 164: delete “apparently”.
6)    Row 176: Replace “phase” with “step” – you have three main steps.
7)    Figure 1.B is not cited in the main text. Improve the quality. The legend “Apulian provinces” should be filled in grey.
8)    The paragraph (rows 192 – 201) consists of information for Italy. Please move to the beginning of 2.1. Extend the analysis of Figure 1. In my mind, try to combine 2.1 and 2.2.
9)     Rows 235-249: format according to the template.
10)    Figure 2.B is not cited in the main text. Figure 2 should show the algorithm of the three steps.
11)    The legend and Table 3 should be placed on one page.
12)    The two scenarios (Table 7 and text) will be better separated into a separate point.
13)    Rows 554 – 603 should be moved to the Introduction section. Also for rows 687 – 700.
14)    Revise the conclusion. It should be extended to specify the received scientific results.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Well done