Marina Frolova

Landscapes, Water Policy and the Evolution of Discourses on Hydropower in Spain

Abstract The paper explores the institutional and social processes through which river and hydropower landscapes have emerged in Spanish water policy. It examines the relation between different types of policies and attitudes towards landscape, energy, water, environment and land use in the production of Spanish landscapes. The article presents examples at both national and regional levels to explain that the institutional emergence of the river landscape in Spain has been closely related to the democratization and decentralization of Spanish politics and water policy and to the increasing prominence of environmental concerns.

Emerging Renewable Energy Landscapes in Southern European Countries

We explore the process of emergence of renewable energy landscapes in various countries in southern Europe, focusing on the tensions this has caused, on the role of the institutional settings in the different countries and on evolving landscape values and approaches. We present a thorough analysis of the heterogeneous and multidimensional process of construction of energy landscapes and explore the different kinds of energy landscape emerging today. We then explain the structure of the book and conclude by setting out some of the challenges ahead for renewable energy planning.

The Evolution of Renewable Landscapes in Sierra Nevada (Southern Spain)

We explore the processes through which small hydropower and later on wind-power landscapes emerged in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Andalusia (southern Spain) and the evolution of landscape practices and landscape values related with these energies. Throughout the history of small hydro development in our study area, the attitudes to it have varied between rejection and acceptance. At the same time, the landscape features inherent to them were sometimes perceived as negative impacts and sometimes assimilated positively as new landscape values, depending on the historical and social context. The analysis of the evolution of hydropower in mountain landscapes and the related practices provides useful lessons for understanding the influence of new forms of renewable energy, not only in terms of their landscape impact but also in terms of the role of landscape values in determining their acceptance or rejection by different stakeholders.

Renewable Energies and European Landscapes

In 2000, at the dawn of the adoption of the EU Directive on renewable energy, a green-red alliance opened a political window for the emergence of a genuine wind power policy in France. Yet today, after more than 10 years of one of the highest feed-in tariffs in the world, the installed capacity in France is still low. Wind power, if it is to be developed at any significant level, has to fight against the centralization of both French energy policy and landscape protection. In this context, the landscape processes, which take place when wind power is either planned or sited at the local level through open governance, are places and occasions for institutional and social innovation that contribute to building decentralization. This chapter examines the ways in which wind power development has raised tensions over the centralization of both energy and landscape policy in France.The development of hydroelectricity in the French central Pyrenees at the beginning of the twentieth century was met with strong resistance in the name of landscape preservation and the protection of the tourist resource that landscape represented. Space had to be shared, and some reserves of picturesque features were obtained from the industrialists, in exchange for a free hand in tourist development. This chapter analyses how the interaction between the different stakeholders brought about this spatial partition and shows the ambivalence of the discourse constructed to legitimise it. By examining the case of the protected site of Gavarnie in depth, it sheds light on the social issues that were emerging as a background to the resistance to hydroelectricity and its impact on the landscape and shows how, through this resistance, the power of an external elite acting as a self-proclaimed aesthetic authority was imposed on communities in the mountain areas.This chapter discusses the way in which cross national comparison shall be approached. We assume that energy landscapes emerge at the crossroads of energy technology development and changes in current landscapes. We successively discuss different frameworks for approaching technology devel-opment and landscape change, before turning to the recent literature about landscape and renewable energy development. We conclude that cross national comparison of landscapes of energies should be attentive to the type of landscape tradition at work in each country and account for the fact that the development of renewable energy endows these traditions with a renewed existence. Depending on the extent and the focus of the conflicts or controversies raised around RE projects, the method and focus of the analysis shall differ.

Renewable Energies and European Landscapes: Lessons from Southern European Cases

In 2000, at the dawn of the adoption of the EU Directive on renewable energy, a green-red alliance opened a political window for the emergence of a genuine wind power policy in France. Yet today, after more than 10 years of one of the highest feed-in tariffs in the world, the installed capacity in France is still low. Wind power, if it is to be developed at any significant level, has to fight against the centralization of both French energy policy and landscape protection. In this context, the landscape processes, which take place when wind power is either planned or sited at the local level through open governance, are places and occasions for institutional and social innovation that contribute to building decentralization. This chapter examines the ways in which wind power development has raised tensions over the centralization of both energy and landscape policy in France.The development of hydroelectricity in the French central Pyrenees at the beginning of the twentieth century was met with strong resistance in the name of landscape preservation and the protection of the tourist resource that landscape represented. Space had to be shared, and some reserves of picturesque features were obtained from the industrialists, in exchange for a free hand in tourist development. This chapter analyses how the interaction between the different stakeholders brought about this spatial partition and shows the ambivalence of the discourse constructed to legitimise it. By examining the case of the protected site of Gavarnie in depth, it sheds light on the social issues that were emerging as a background to the resistance to hydroelectricity and its impact on the landscape and shows how, through this resistance, the power of an external elite acting as a self-proclaimed aesthetic authority was imposed on communities in the mountain areas.This chapter discusses the way in which cross national comparison shall be approached. We assume that energy landscapes emerge at the crossroads of energy technology development and changes in current landscapes. We successively discuss different frameworks for approaching technology devel-opment and landscape change, before turning to the recent literature about landscape and renewable energy development. We conclude that cross national comparison of landscapes of energies should be attentive to the type of landscape tradition at work in each country and account for the fact that the development of renewable energy endows these traditions with a renewed existence. Depending on the extent and the focus of the conflicts or controversies raised around RE projects, the method and focus of the analysis shall differ.