Abstract
This article introduces land-use zoning for wind energy in European countries and the United State, especially in Germany. After showing a variety of zoning at the local, regional and national level have been widely introduced in those countries, this article describes approaches to prevent overdevelopment of wind energy and electing turbines in unsuitable area for bird species, through a case study of the regional-level zoning in Brandenburg and Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany. The results are: (1) the zoning shall provide “substantial” suitable area for wind energy, which is quantitatively calculated on the renewable energy target in each state while restricting the siting of turbines in the outside of the suitable area; (2) there are specific distance criteria of wind turbines to breeding and resting sites of selected sensitive species to wind energy so as to show unsuitable area systematically.
