Multifunction Land Use to Promote Energy Communities in Mediterranean Region: Cases of Egypt and Italy

Ahmed Abouaiana and Alessandra Battisti
Additional contact information
Ahmed Abouaiana: Department of Planning, Design, and Technology of Architecture, Sapienza, University of Rome, Via Flaminia 72, 00196 Rome, Italy
Alessandra Battisti: Department of Planning, Design, and Technology of Architecture, Sapienza, University of Rome, Via Flaminia 72, 00196 Rome, Italy

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-24

Abstract: Mediterranean rural settlements suffer from numerous environmental challenges, specifically the annual decrease of the farmlands, climate change threats, and growing resource consumption and demand, such as energy, the core of development. Rural areas play a significant role in achieving food security and sustainable development. Therefore, this paper promotes the energy community and agrivoltaic key concepts as pillars to show how buildings and farms’ land uses positively impact the ecosystem. The study focused on Egypt and Italy as representatives of the entire region. Two rural settlements with the same characteristics representing typical agriculture-based patterns have been selected: Lasaifar Albalad, representing 339 villages in the Delta Region, northern Egypt, and Pontinia, representing rural typologies of the 1930s in the Lazio Region, central Italy. Then, two focus groups with versatile stakeholders were conducted. The results showed the juxtaposition of the key concepts and national rural and agricultural policies and fostered a novel approach between Egypt and Italy. The study presented the first analysis of both contexts. The focus groups promoted the ideas, led to a better understanding of the implementation possibilities, raised awareness, improved social acceptance, and highlighted the significant barriers. It paved the way for a further study (micro-scale on-ground practices) to be planned and implemented soon.

Keywords: agricultural-based settlements; rural commons; nexus approach; transdisciplinarity; participatory approach; sustainable development; Delta region; Lazio region (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/5/673/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/5/673/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:5:p:673-:d:806779

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().