Land take and landscape loss: Effect of uncontrolled urbanization in Southern Italy

Fiorini, Lorena; Zullo, Francesco; Marucci, Alessandro; Romano, Bernardino

doi:10.1016/j.jum.2018.09.003

Cited by 33 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…The data concerning quality and environmental protection were instead derived from documents of the Ministry of the Environment or, in the case of forests, from the European CORINE Land Cover 2012. Data from the urbanized areas came from the processing carried out by the University of L'Aquila for the 1950s [12,13], while data for the current period came from the digital land use maps developed by the regions until 2008 (LUM).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Latitudinal Gradient in Urban Pressure and Socio-Environmental Quality: The “Peninsula Effect” in Italy

Romano

Fiorini

Dato

et al. 2020

Land

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The purpose of this work is to synthesize, for an international audience, certain fundamental elements that characterize the Italian peninsular territory, through the use of a biogeographical model known as the “peninsula effect” (PE). Just as biodiversity in peninsulas tends to change, diverging from the continental margin, so do some socio-economic and behavioral characteristics, for which it is possible to detect a progressive and indisputable variation depending on the distance from the continental mass. Through the use of 14 indicators, a survey was conducted on the peninsular sensitivity (which in Italy is also latitudinal) of as many phenomena. It obtained confirmation results for some of them, well known as problematic for the country, but contradictory results for others, such as those related to urban development. In the final part, the work raises a series of questions, also showing how peninsular Italy, and in particular Central–Southern Italy, is not penalized so dramatically by its geography and morphology as many political and scientific opinions suggest. The result is a very ambiguous image of Italy, in which the country appears undoubtedly uniform in some aspects, while the PE is very evident in others; it is probably still necessary to investigate, without relying on simplistic and misleading equations, the profound reasons for some phenomena that could be at the basis of less ephemeral rebalancing policies than those practiced in the past.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Latitudinal Gradient in Urban Pressure and Socio-Environmental Quality: The “Peninsula Effect” in Italy

Romano

Fiorini

Dato

et al. 2020

Land

Self Cite

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“…Especially on the local scale, the impact of human activity on the landscape is directly felt, perceived, and evaluated by local communities [3]. In many parts of the world, the changes are so strong that they cause a complete change in the character of the landscape or degradation of its values [4][5][6]. Anthropogenic changes, determined mainly by technological, social, cultural, political, and spatial processes, are mentioned as the main drivers of landscape changes on a global scale [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring of Landscape Transformations within Landscape Parks in Poland in the 21st Century

Krajewski

2019

Sustainability

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One of the most problematic forms of nature protection in Poland relates to landscape parks. They include the most valuable landscapes, but the areas within the landscape park still have economic uses. Therefore, the monitoring of landscape changes within landscape parks is necessary in order to properly manage these forms of protection. The main objective of the study was to monitor the scale and nature of landscape transformations within the boundaries of landscape parks in Poland during the period 2000–2018 and to assess the possibility of using the landscape change index (LCI) to monitor the intensity of landscape transformations within this type of protected area. Preliminary analyses of the transformations within all landscape parks in Poland showed an upward trend, both in terms of the number of types of identified landscape changes as well as their area. In spite of the large diversity and degree of transformation in landscape parks, several dominant processes can be observed. The largest number and area of changes during each of the analyzed periods were found in transformations within forest landscapes (temporary and permanent deforestation and forest maturation), which constitute the dominant type of land cover within most of the landscape parks. In open landscapes, changes mainly relate to afforestation and natural succession in meadows, pastures, and arable land, as well as the transformation of arable land into mining areas. Twelve case studies, covering all landscape parks in Lower Silesia, have shown that the LCI is an excellent tool for monitoring the intensity of landscape changes, but it is dependent on the accuracy of the source data. The analyses confirmed that, during the study periods, the changes in all 12 Lower Silesian landscape parks were at a low level, but their particular intensification took place in the years from 2012 to 2018. The highest LCI was found in the area where a natural disaster had occurred (air tornado), which destroyed huge areas of forest in landscape parks. After changes in the forest landscape, the most frequently identified type of change in 2006–2012 was the transformation of non-forest landscapes into forest landscapes. The main reason for such changes was the expansion of forest into abandoned arable land, meadows, and pastures. The use of the Corine Land Cover database to calculate the LCI and monitor the intensity of landscape change revealed a low usability of the database for the year 2000 and a high usability for data from 2006 to 2018.

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“…As a novel contribution to land-use science, the present work delineates the prevalent mode of urban expansion in Rome (Italy) considering both socioeconomic functions (whose changes are reflected in the sequential stages of the city life cycle) and morphological shifts (e.g., compact vs. dispersed). The Rome metropolitan area is a typical semi-compact and dense city in southern Europe experiencing different waves of settlement expansion and represents an example of metropolitan transformations in the Mediterranean [60][61][62]. The empirical results of this study allow for the discussion of the (supposed) unsustainability of current urban expansion compared with past settlement structures as far as land fragmentation and loss of relict habitats and traditional crops at the fringe are concerned.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Toward a Dualistic Growth? Population Increase and Land-Use Change in Rome, Italy

Bianchini

Egidi

Alhuseen

et al. 2021

Land

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The spatial mismatch between population growth and settlement expansion is at the base of current models of urban growth. Empirical evidence is increasingly required to inform planning measures promoting urban containment in the context of a stable (or declining) population. In these regards, per-capita indicators of land-use change can be adopted with the aim at evaluating long-term sustainability of urbanization processes. The present study assesses spatial variations in per-capita indicators of land-use change in Rome, Central Italy, at five years (1949, 1974, 1999, 2008, and 2016) with the final objective of quantifying the mismatch between urban expansion and population growth. Originally specialized in agricultural productions, Rome’s metropolitan area is a paradigmatic example of dispersed urban expansion in the Mediterranean basin. By considering multiple land-use dynamics, per-capita indicators of landscape change delineated three distinctive waves of growth corresponding with urbanization, suburbanization, and a more mixed stage with counter-urbanization and re-urbanization impulses. By reflecting different socioeconomic contexts on a local scale, urban fabric and forests were identified as the ‘winner’ classes, expanding homogeneously over time at the expense of cropland. Agricultural landscapes experienced a more heterogeneous trend with arable land and pastures declining systematically and more fragmented land classes (e.g., vineyards and olive groves) displaying stable (or slightly increasing) trends. The continuous reduction of per-capita surface area of cropland that’s supports a reduced production base, which is now insufficient to satisfy the rising demand for fresh food at the metropolitan scale, indicates the unsustainability of the current development in Rome and more generally in the whole Mediterranean basin, a region specialized traditionally in (proximity) agricultural productions.

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Land take and landscape loss: Effect of uncontrolled urbanization in Southern Italy

Cited by 33 publications

References 25 publications

Latitudinal Gradient in Urban Pressure and Socio-Environmental Quality: The “Peninsula Effect” in Italy

Latitudinal Gradient in Urban Pressure and Socio-Environmental Quality: The “Peninsula Effect” in Italy

Monitoring of Landscape Transformations within Landscape Parks in Poland in the 21st Century

Toward a Dualistic Growth? Population Increase and Land-Use Change in Rome, Italy

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