Unraveling Latent Aspects of Urban Expansion: Desertification Risk Reveals More

Gianluca Egidi, Ilaria Zambon, Ilaria Tombolin, Luca Salvati, Sirio Cividino, Samaneh Seifollahi-Aghmiuni and Zahra Kalantari
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Gianluca Egidi: Department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, 01100 Viterbo, Italy
Ilaria Zambon: Department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, 01100 Viterbo, Italy
Ilaria Tombolin: Department of Architecture and Project, Sapienza University, 00100 Rome, Italy
Luca Salvati: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), 52100 Arezzo, Italy
Sirio Cividino: Department of Agriculture, University of Udine, 33100 Udine, Italy
Samaneh Seifollahi-Aghmiuni: Department of Physical Geography and Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, 104 65 Stockholm, Sweden
Zahra Kalantari: Department of Physical Geography and Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, 104 65 Stockholm, Sweden

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 11, 1-15

Abstract: Urban expansion results in socioeconomic transformations with relevant impacts for peri-urban soils, leading to environmental concerns about land degradation and increased desertification risk in ecologically fragile districts. Spatial planning can help achieve sustainable land-use patterns and identify alternative locations for settlements and infrastructure. However, it is sometimes unable to comprehend and manage complex processes in metropolitan developments, fueling unregulated and mainly dispersed urban expansion on land with less stringent building constraints. Using the Mediterranean cities of Barcelona and Rome as examples of intense urbanization and ecological fragility, the present study investigated whether land use planning in these cities is (directly or indirectly) oriented towards conservation of soil quality and mitigation of desertification risk. Empirical results obtained using composite, geo-referenced indices of soil quality (SQI) and sensitivity to land desertification (SDI), integrated with high-resolution land zoning maps, indicated that land devoted to natural and semi-natural uses has lower soil quality in both contexts. The highest values of SDI, indicating high sensitivity to desertification, were observed in fringe areas with medium-high population density and settlement expansion. These findings reveal processes of land take involving buildable soils, sometimes of high quality, and surrounding landscapes in both cities. Overall, the results in this study can help inform land use planers and policymakers for conservation of high-quality soils, especially under weak (or partial) regulatory constraints.

Keywords: suburbs; land degradation; indicators; land use planning; Mediterranean Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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