IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v7y2015i9p11980-11997d54953.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Desperately Seeking Sustainability: Urban Shrinkage, Land Consumption and Regional Planning in a Mediterranean Metropolitan Area

Author

Listed:
  • Luca Salvati

    (Italian Council of Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Via della Navicella 2, I-00184 Rome, Italy)

  • Agostino Ferrara

    (School of Agricultural, Forest, Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Basilicata, Via dell'Ateneo Lucano 10, I-85100 Potenza, Italy)

  • Ilaria Tombolini

    (Italian Council of Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Via della Navicella 2, I-00184 Rome, Italy)

  • Roberta Gemmiti

    (Department of Methods and Models for Territory, Economy and Finance, Sapienza University of Rome, Via del Castro Laurenziano 9, I-00161 Rome, Italy)

  • Andrea Colantoni

    (Department of Agriculture, Forest, Nature and Energy (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, Via S. Camillo de Lellis snc Viterbo, Italy)

  • Luigi Perini

    (Italian Council of Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Via del Caravita 7a, I-00186 Rome, Italy)

Abstract

Land degradation has expanded in the Mediterranean region as a result of a variety of factors, including economic and population growth, land-use changes and climate variations. The level of land vulnerability to degradation and its growth over time are distributed heterogeneously over space, concentrating on landscapes exposed to high human pressure. The present study investigates the level of land vulnerability to degradation in a shrinking urban area (Rome, Italy) at four points in time (1960, 1990, 2000 and 2010) and it identifies relevant factors negatively impacting the quality of land and the level of landscape fragmentation. A multi-domain assessment of land vulnerability incorporating indicators of climate quality, soil quality, vegetation quality and land management quality was carried out based on the Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) framework. The highest rate of growth in the level of land vulnerability was observed in low-density suburban areas. The peri-urban mosaic formed by coastal woodlands and traditional cropland preserved high-quality land with a stable degree of vulnerability over time. Evidence suggests that the agro-forest mosaic surrounding Mediterranean cities act as a “buffer zone” mitigating on-site and off-site land degradation. The conservation of relict natural landscapes is a crucial target for multi-scale policies combating land degradation in suburban dry regions.

Suggested Citation

  • Luca Salvati & Agostino Ferrara & Ilaria Tombolini & Roberta Gemmiti & Andrea Colantoni & Luigi Perini, 2015. "Desperately Seeking Sustainability: Urban Shrinkage, Land Consumption and Regional Planning in a Mediterranean Metropolitan Area," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(9), pages 1-18, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:7:y:2015:i:9:p:11980-11997:d:54953
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/9/11980/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/9/11980/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ibáñez, Javier & Valderrama, Jaime Martínez & Puigdefábregas, Juan, 2008. "Assessing desertification risk using system stability condition analysis," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 213(2), pages 180-190.
    2. Luca Salvati & Marco Zitti & Margherita Carlucci, 2014. "Territorial Systems, Regional Disparities and Sustainability: Economic Structure and Soil Degradation in Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(5), pages 1-19, May.
    3. Marco Zitti & Carlotta Ferrara & Luigi Perini & Margherita Carlucci & Luca Salvati, 2015. "Long-Term Urban Growth and Land Use Efficiency in Southern Europe: Implications for Sustainable Land Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-27, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ingrid Vigna & Angelo Besana & Elena Comino & Alessandro Pezzoli, 2021. "Application of the Socio-Ecological System Framework to Forest Fire Risk Management: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-20, February.
    2. Biao Zhang & Dian Shao & Zhonghu Zhang, 2022. "Spatio-Temporal Evolution Dynamic, Effect and Governance Policy of Construction Land Use in Urban Agglomeration: Case Study of Yangtze River Delta, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-36, May.
    3. Yagi, Hironori & Garrod, Guy, 2018. "The future of agriculture in the shrinking suburbs: The impact of real estate income and housing costs," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 812-822.
    4. Zambon, Ilaria & Benedetti, Anna & Ferrara, Carlotta & Salvati, Luca, 2018. "Soil Matters? A Multivariate Analysis of Socioeconomic Constraints to Urban Expansion in Mediterranean Europe," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 173-183.
    5. Rosanna Salvia & Pere Serra & Ilaria Zambon & Massimo Cecchini & Luca Salvati, 2018. "In-Between Sprawl and Neo-Rurality: Sparse Settlements and the Evolution of Socio-Demographic Local Context in a Mediterranean Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-14, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gianluca Egidi & Luca Salvati & Pavel Cudlin & Rosanna Salvia & Manuela Romagnoli, 2020. "A New ‘Lexicon’ of Land Degradation: Toward a Holistic Thinking for Complex Socioeconomic Issues," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-19, May.
    2. Rares Halbac-Cotoara-Zamfir & Andrea Colantoni & Enrico Maria Mosconi & Stefano Poponi & Simona Fortunati & Luca Salvati & Filippo Gambella, 2020. "From Historical Narratives to Circular Economy: De-Complexifying the “Desertification” Debate," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-18, July.
    3. Rosanna Salvia & Pere Serra & Ilaria Zambon & Massimo Cecchini & Luca Salvati, 2018. "In-Between Sprawl and Neo-Rurality: Sparse Settlements and the Evolution of Socio-Demographic Local Context in a Mediterranean Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-14, October.
    4. Zambon, Ilaria & Benedetti, Anna & Ferrara, Carlotta & Salvati, Luca, 2018. "Soil Matters? A Multivariate Analysis of Socioeconomic Constraints to Urban Expansion in Mediterranean Europe," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 173-183.
    5. Esposito, Piero & Patriarca, Fabrizio & Salvati, Luca, 2018. "Tertiarization and land use change: The case of Italy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 80-86.
    6. Rosanna Salvia & Rares Halbac-Cotoara-Zamfir & Sirio Cividino & Luca Salvati & Giovanni Quaranta, 2020. "From Rural Spaces to Peri-Urban Districts: Metropolitan Growth, Sparse Settlements and Demographic Dynamics in a Mediterranean Region," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-20, June.
    7. Eduard J. Alvarez-Palau & Jordi Martí-Henneberg & Jorge Solanas-Jiménez, 2019. "Urban Growth and Long-Term Transformations in Spanish Cities Since the Mid-Nineteenth Century: A Methodology to Determine Changes in Urban Density," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-22, December.
    8. Marcela Prokopová & Luca Salvati & Gianluca Egidi & Ondřej Cudlín & Renata Včeláková & Radek Plch & Pavel Cudlín, 2019. "Envisioning Present and Future Land-Use Change under Varying Ecological Regimes and Their Influence on Landscape Stability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-24, August.
    9. Marcela Prokopová & Ondřej Cudlín & Renata Včeláková & Szabolcs Lengyel & Luca Salvati & Pavel Cudlín, 2018. "Latent Drivers of Landscape Transformation in Eastern Europe: Past, Present and Future," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-17, August.
    10. Luca Salvati & Federico Benassi, 2021. "Rise (and Decline) of European Migrants in Greece: Exploring Spatial Determinants of Residential Mobility (1988–2017), with Special Focus on Older Ages," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 599-613, June.
    11. Zambon, Ilaria & Serra, Pere & Grigoriadis, Efstathios & Carlucci, Margherita & Salvati, Luca, 2017. "Emerging urban centrality: An entropy-based indicator of polycentric development and economic growth," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 365-371.
    12. Lisha Pan & Hangang Hu & Xin Jing & Yang Chen & Guan Li & Zhongguo Xu & Yuefei Zhuo & Xueqi Wang, 2022. "The Impacts of Regional Cooperation on Urban Land-Use Efficiency: Evidence from the Yangtze River Delta, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-16, June.
    13. Weiping Zhang & Peiji Shi & Huali Tong, 2022. "Research on Construction Land Use Benefit and the Coupling Coordination Relationship Based on a Three-Dimensional Frame Model—A Case Study in the Lanzhou-Xining Urban Agglomeration," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-16, March.
    14. Rosanna Salvia & Gianluca Egidi & Luca Salvati & Jesús Rodrigo-Comino & Giovanni Quaranta, 2020. "In-Between ‘Smart’ Urban Growth and ‘Sluggish’ Rural Development? Reframing Population Dynamics in Greece, 1940–2019," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-18, July.
    15. Yedong Chen & Jiang Chang & Zixuan Li & Li Ming & Cankun Li & Cheng Li, 2023. "Coupling Coordination and Spatiotemporal Analysis of Urban Compactness and Land-Use Efficiency in Resource-Based Areas: A Case Study of Shanxi Province, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-23, August.
    16. Valerio Moretti & Luca Salvati & Massimo Cecchini & Ilaria Zambon, 2019. "A Long-Term Analysis of Demographic Processes, Socioeconomic ‘Modernization’ and Forest Expansion in a European Country," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-16, January.
    17. Luca Salvati, 2020. "Envisaging long-term urban dynamics: a spatially explicit analysis of local-scale population growth and natural balance," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 165-186, August.
    18. Luca Salvati & Ilaria Tombolini & Achille Ippolito & Margherita Carlucci, 2018. "Land quality and the city: Monitoring urban growth and land take in 76 Southern European metropolitan areas," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 45(4), pages 691-712, July.
    19. Musa Pazhuhan & Saeed Zanganeh Shahraki & Niloofar Kaveerad & Sirio Cividino & Matteo Clemente & Luca Salvati, 2020. "Factors Underlying Life Quality in Urban Contexts: Evidence from an Industrial City (Arak, Iran)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-16, March.
    20. Bin Duan & Xuanming Ji, 2021. "Can Carbon Finance Optimize Land Use Efficiency? The Example of China’s Carbon Emissions Trading Policy," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-18, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:7:y:2015:i:9:p:11980-11997:d:54953. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.