New Approach to Landscape-Based Spatial Planning Using Meaningful Geolocated Digital Traces

Clara García-Mayor () and Almudena Nolasco-Cirugeda ()
Additional contact information
Clara García-Mayor: Urban Design and Regional Planning Unit, Building Sciences and Urbanism Department, University of Alicante, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Spain
Almudena Nolasco-Cirugeda: Urban Design and Regional Planning Unit, Building Sciences and Urbanism Department, University of Alicante, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Spain

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-22

Abstract: The integration of landscape-based approaches into regional and town planning policies is one of the main objectives of the European Landscape Convention. In the twenty-first century, the traditional discipline of city spatial-planning has gradually been incorporating two types of tactics linked to a landscape-based approach: nature-based strategies, which focus on sustainable goals; and people-based strategies, which integrate a social dimension into decision-making processes. A backbone of landscape-based spatial planning challenge consists of reshaping consolidated urban areas to improve quality of life, encouraging people’s physical activity, and supporting healthier urban lifestyles. This study assumes that physical activity is further encouraged by itineraries that incorporate both landscape features—i.e., natural assets and sense of place—and functional diversity associated with urban activities—i.e., public facilities. A methodology was elaborated to define a preliminary landscape-based spatial planning approach, centering on the analysis of walking-related activity in urban and peri-urban areas. For this purpose, geolocated digital traces are intertwined: official city routes, urban facility locations, users’ Wikiloc trails, and Google Places API data. Once applied to selected medium-sized European cities in the Mediterranean area, these data sources lead to the identification of intangible values and dynamics in places where landscape-based spatial planning solutions could be enhanced. As a result, the present work shows the suitability of interrelating these geolocated data sources, permitting to identify landscape features as key components of spatial planning, which permit balancing individual goals, the aims of local communities, and administrative functions.

Keywords: landscape-based planning; cultural ecosystem services; peri-urban transects; geolocated social-media data; LBSN; Wikiloc routes; Google Places API; people-based spatial planning; medium-sized cities; sustainable urban development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/5/951/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/5/951/ (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:12:y:2023:i:5:p:951-:d:1131558

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 ().