Within the broad theme ‘Energy and Territory’, over the years RSE had to deal with specific aspects that required the development of more or less complex ad hoc GIS tools (e.g. thematic atlases). The development of the Integrated Atlas for the national energy system aimed to respond to the need to put together different elements of the energy sector (resources, demands, territorial constraints, production plants, etc.), with a system view.
The creation of the Energy & Territory Geoportal was instead inspired by the need for a more effective organization of contents and products and, above all, for a more organic communication of the results obtained over the years. The Geoportal is the web gateway to a consistent set of information resources made available by RSE on the topic Energy & Territory, and gives access to the Integrated Atlas, the Energy, Territory & Environment Geodatabase, thematic atlases and other interactive contents of particular interest for the national energy system.
The Geoportal and the Integrated Atlas can be used in many ways to support studies on the energy and territory theme. A prime example of the possible uses concerns RSE activities on multi-energy planning on a territorial scale. The TOTEM tool available in the Integrated Atlas allows for the processing and combination of information in order to provide an energy characterization of the territory, useful as an input for detailed analysis with multi-energy models. The results of these analyses can then be summarized in a Geohistory (as the one developed for the Sulcis-Iglesiente case study) and made available through the Geoportal.
This report illustrates the purposes, contents and functionality of both the Geoportal and the Integrated Atlas (in its new version), and presents an in-depth analysis on the opportunities for using satellite images for future developments and applications.