GIS Analysis of Land-Use Change in Threatened Landscapes by Xylella fastidiosa

Abstract

Land-use/land-cover analysis using Geographic Information System (GIS) application can describe and quantify the transformation of the landscape, evaluating the effectiveness of municipal planning in driving urban expansion. This approach was applied in the municipality of Spongano (Salento, South Italy) in order to evaluate the spatial heterogeneity and the transformations of the land use/land cover from 1988 to 2016. This approach was also used to examine the spread of Xylella fastidiosa, which is a plant pathogen of global importance that is reshaping the Salento landscape. The land-use maps are based on the CORINE Land Cover project classification, while the topological consistency was verified through field surveys. A change detection analysis was carried out using the land-use maps of 1988 and 2016. The most extensive land-use class is olive groves (34–36%), followed by non-irrigated arable lands and shrub and/or herbaceous vegetation associations. The main transition of land involved non-irrigated arable lands, which lost 76 ha and 23 ha to shrub and olive areas, respectively. Meanwhile, the artificial surfaces class doubled its extension, which involved mainly the transition from shrub and heterogeneous agricultural areas. However, the olive groves class is threatened by the dramatic phytosanitary condition of the area, indicating a compromised agroecosystem, which is causing a de facto transition into unproductive areas. The results highlight the inconsistency between what was planned by the urban plan in the past and how the landscape of Spongano has been changed over time. This evidence suggests that it is necessary to develop a plan based on learning by doing, in order to shape and adapt the processes of territorial transformation to the unpredictability of the ecologic, social, and economic systems, as well as ensure that these processes are always focused on environmental issues.

A Bottom-Up and Top-Down Participatory Approach to Planning and Designing Local Urban Development: Evidence from an Urban University Center

“…The urban area is, therefore, a complex socio-ecological system where various communities can overlap and interact to a greater or lesser extent and co-evolve with their environment through change, instability, and mutual adaptation [2,4]. Therefore, the evolution of an urban ecosystem is influenced by social decisions or needs and by stakeholders' heterogeneity (for instance, culture, education, religion, vision, interest) [5][6][7][8]. These institutional levels include decision-makers like administrative and public institutions that plan the socio-ecological system at different scales: "ecosystems in urban areas", "urban areas within ecosystems", and "urban areas within regional/global ecosystems".…”

“…At different scales, the boundaries of the urban ecosystem are not always well defined or clear, and therefore, boundaries of a survey area are defined considering the topic and interactions to be analyzed and on practical considerations. [5,9]. Institutional levels are hierarchical and consist of vertical relations between actors of the top and bottom of the levels.…”

“…The urban planning and design have to create a synergy between different institutional levels ( Figure 1) [10][11][12][13]. Schematic representation of the relationship between urban ecosystem scales and institutional levels in the socio-ecological system [5,6,9]. In many industrialized cities, urban planning must address the phenomenon of "shrinking cities" [14].…”

“…This work wants to develop a planning-process of the urban space transformation able to create feedback between different stakeholders at different institutional scales to reduce the mismatch between governance levels and the scales at which people benefit from urban space: from the need of the single individual to the development vision of the decision-makers [5,6,45]. Starting from a practical case study, we propose a combination of a bottom-up and top-down methodology capable of developing a participated urban plan, harmonizing the various stakeholders' interests that act at the different administrative levels and integrating ecological and socio-economic components in the context in which it is inserted [31,45].…”

Characterization and variation of bacterial and fungal communities from the sapwood of Apulian olive varieties with different susceptibility toXylella fastidiosa

“…The disease incidence has increased rapidly from the first outbreak in the South of Apulia through the olive groves of the peninsula [3,4]. Until 2019, 6.5 million olive trees on 715,000 ha were severely damaged by the disease [5].…”