Fallow Land, Recession and Socio-Demographic Local Contexts: Recent Dynamics in a Mediterranean Urban Fringe

Ilaria Zambon, Pere Serra, Rosanna Salvia and Luca Salvati
Additional contact information
Ilaria Zambon: Department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, DAFNE Tuscia University, Via San Camillo de Lellis snc, I-01100 Viterbo, Italy
Pere Serra: Department of Geography, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Building B, Campus UAB, ES-08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), Spain
Rosanna Salvia: Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Economics, University of Basilicata, Via dell’Ateneo Lucano, I-85100 Potenza, Italy
Luca Salvati: Council of Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Research Centre for Forestry and Wood, Viale S. Margherita 80, I-52100 Arezzo, Italy

Agriculture, 2018, vol. 8, issue 10, 1-17

Abstract: Urban settlements have globally expanded into rural land. Being influenced by complex socio-environmental dynamics and sometimes acting as a reserve of economic value, fallow land has characterized rural areas in a distinctive way over the last decades. The present work debates on the role of fallow land as a component of Mediterranean peri-urban landscapes, considering together different aspects from environmental/agronomic and regional science perspectives. An empirical analysis of the latent relationship between spatial distribution of fallow land, agricultural landscape (land-use, territorial, and topographic characteristics), and urban sprawl was carried out in a representative Mediterranean case study (Athens, Greece) evidencing the possible linkage between urban growth/containment, conservation of rural biodiversity/local traditions, and fallow land (intended as a candidate source of buildable land) in fringe districts. Urban growth at the local scale was contrasted with the spatial distribution of fallow land under sequential expansions and recessions of the regional economic system. Conservation of marginal rural land in fringe districts—including fallow land—is a necessary target of any sustainable land management strategy in metropolitan contexts experiencing rapid socioeconomic transformations.

Keywords: agricultural landscape; olive groves; metropolitan area; sustainable land management; Greece (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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