Forest Transition and Metropolitan Transformations in Developed Countries: Interpreting Apparent and Latent Dynamics with Local Regression Models

Leonardo Bianchini, Rosanna Salvia, Giovanni Quaranta, Gianluca Egidi, Luca Salvati and Alvaro Marucci
Additional contact information
Leonardo Bianchini: Department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, Via S. Camillo De Lellis snc, I-01100 Viterbo, Italy
Rosanna Salvia: Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Economics, University of Basilicata, Viale dell’Ateneo Lucano, I-85100 Potenza, Italy
Giovanni Quaranta: Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Economics, University of Basilicata, Viale dell’Ateneo Lucano, I-85100 Potenza, Italy
Gianluca Egidi: Department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, Via S. Camillo De Lellis snc, I-01100 Viterbo, Italy
Luca Salvati: Department of Economics and Law, University of Macerata, Via Armaroli 43, I-62100 Macerata, Italy
Alvaro Marucci: Department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, Via S. Camillo De Lellis snc, I-01100 Viterbo, Italy

Land, 2021, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Metropolitan fringes in Southern Europe preserve, under different territorial contexts, natural habitats, relict woodlands, and mixed agro-forest systems acting as a sink of biodiversity and ecosystem services in ecologically vulnerable landscapes. Clarifying territorial and socioeconomic processes that underlie land-use change in metropolitan regions is relevant for forest conservation policies. At the same time, long-term dynamics of fringe forests in the northern Mediterranean basin have been demonstrated to be rather mixed, with deforestation up to the 1950s and a subsequent recovery more evident in recent decades. The present study makes use of Forest Transition Theory (FTT) to examine spatial processes of forest loss and expansion in metropolitan Rome, Central Italy, through local regressions elaborating two diachronic land-use maps that span more than 80 years (1936–2018) representative of different socioeconomic and ecological conditions. Our study evaluates the turnaround from net forest area loss to net forest area gain, considering together the predictions of the FTT and those of the City Life Cycle (CLC) theory that provides a classical description of the functioning of metropolitan cycles. The empirical findings of our study document a moderate increase in forest cover depending on the forestation of previously abandoned cropland as a consequence of tighter levels of land protection. Natural and human-driven expansion of small and isolated forest nuclei along fringe land was demonstrated to fuel a polycentric expansion of woodlands. The results of a Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) reveal the importance of metropolitan growth in long-term forest expansion. Forest–urban dynamics reflect together settlement sprawl and increased forest disturbance. The contemporary expansion of fringe residential settlements and peri-urban forests into relict agricultural landscapes claims for a renewed land management that may reconnect town planning, reducing the intrinsic risks associated with fringe woodlands (e.g., wildfires) with environmental policies preserving the ecological functionality of diversified agro-forest systems.

Keywords: land-use change; metropolitan gradient; spatial econometrics; agricultural mechanization; Mediterranean (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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