Spatial Overlap Between Wind Power Licensing Areas and Potential Grazing Lands in Greece: A National Screening Assessment

Abstract

Wind energy expansion constitutes a central component of Greece’s energy transition. However, the spatial allocation of Wind Power Production Plants (WPPs) may coincide with potential grazing lands and Natura 2000 protected areas, creating potential land-use and conservation interfaces that require careful planning. This study provides a national-scale spatial screening assessment of the overlap between WPP licensing areas and potential grazing lands in Greece. Geospatial data from the Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE), retrieved in February 2026, were intersected with CORINE Land Cover 2018 data using GIS-based vector analysis. Four alternative grazing-land classification scenarios were applied to account for uncertainty in the spatial definition of potential grazing lands. A spatial intersection was conducted between WPP licensing areas and Natura 2000 boundaries, followed by an assessment of potential grazing-land overlap within the resulting WPP-Natura 2000 areas. The results showed that, across the four scenarios, 65.89% to 70.34% of the total WPP polygon area overlapped potential grazing lands, while overlap within individual licensing stages ranged from 63.40% to 85.93%. Approximately 28.64% of the total WPP polygon area was located within Natura 2000 sites. Within these WPP-Natura 2000 areas, the proportion classified as potential grazing land ranged from 62.68% to 72.19% across the four scenarios. Regional analysis further revealed marked variation in overlap intensity among NUTS-2 regions, licensing stages, and grazing-land scenarios, with producer-certification areas generally showing the highest regional intensities. Although WPP licensing polygons do not represent the actual physical footprint of wind turbines and associated infrastructure, their substantial spatial coincidence with potential grazing lands highlights an important interface between renewable-energy development, livestock farming activities, and biodiversity conservation. The study provides a first-order national-scale screening assessment that can support integrated spatial planning, grazing management, biodiversity conservation, and environmental permitting in Greece.