Maintaining ecosystem continuity has become a central element in spatial planning policies. Several authors acknowledge the environmental, also known as landscape, fragmentation due to human action as one of the main causes which have negative effects on biodiversity. The phenomenon consists of the transformation of larger patches of habitat in smaller ones, or fragments, which tend to be more isolated than in the original condition. It is extremely evident in urban areas, including settlements and various transport and mobility infrastructures, whose main ecological effects include loss of habitat, increased mortality of plants, and isolation of animal and vegetal species. In this paper, we assess landscape fragmentation dynamics of six landscape units belonging to two European regions, i.e. Sardinia in Italy (from 2003 to 2008), and Andalusia in Spain (from 2005 to 2009). We developed on three indices: the Infrastructural Fragmentation Index (IFI), the Urban Fragmentation Index (UFI), and the Connectivity Index (CI). We found that coastal areas generally suffer from an higher pressure due to the demand of longer or faster transport infrastructures and new settlements and less fragmented areas tend to show the most relevant dynamics in a sort of convergent pattern. Even though landscape fragmentation and connectivity are intuitively complementary phenomena, in this paper we did not found any statistical evidence of this associative property.
Motorways are large infrastructures that alter the environmental resources in a territory, while constituting an important element through which the individual comes into contact with the landscape. Motorways are integrated in the landscape through their layout design and construction, the aesthetic details of minor structures (design and building materials) and the treatment of embankments and landscape planting. In this paper, we test the following hypotheses: motorway elements are related to the perception of landscape quality—from the point of view of the road users—and the aesthetic characteristics of minor infrastructures and planting affect the quality of the landscape perceived from the roads. These research questions were tested by comparing the visual quality of the landscapes captured in 128 photographs taken from sections of motorways in Spain. We compared the results obtained from (a) a photo-based method, and (b) the public’s landscape preferences determined using a survey of 737 people. The results show a correlation between the landscape quality values obtained using the model and the landscape preferences expressed by the public. We also found that the presence of the motorway elements and their aesthetic characteristics are significant in the users’ perception. These results can be applied in the decision-making process for potential investments to integrate new and existing motorways in the landscape.
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