Agroforestry as a Driver for the Provisioning of Peri-Urban Socio-Ecological Functions: A Trans-Disciplinary Approach

Alice Giulia Dal Borgo, Gemma Chiaffarelli (), Valentina Capocefalo, Andrea Schievano, Stefano Bocchi and Ilda Vagge
Additional contact information
Alice Giulia Dal Borgo: Department of Heritage and Environment, University of Milan, 20122 Milan, Italy
Gemma Chiaffarelli: Department of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, University of Milan, 20122 Milan, Italy
Valentina Capocefalo: Department of Heritage and Environment, University of Milan, 20122 Milan, Italy
Andrea Schievano: Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of Milan, 20122 Milan, Italy
Stefano Bocchi: Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of Milan, 20122 Milan, Italy
Ilda Vagge: Department of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, University of Milan, 20122 Milan, Italy

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 14, 1-30

Abstract: Peri-urban rural system rehabilitation is pivotal to the socio-ecological balanced functioning of urban systems. In this paper, we investigate the performance of agroforestry participative practices in rehabilitating peri-urban belts (in-field productive agroforestry; between-field landscape features). We test a new trans-disciplinary, multi-level analytical framework for the ecosystem services (ESs) assessment based on site-specific socio-ecological information. We parallelly analyse ecological and cultural traits: 1. agroecosystem components (flora–vegetation; human community); 2. their organization at the landscape level (landscape eco-mosaic; cultural landscape); and 3. their socio-ecological functions/processes. We compare the current state with a transformation scenario. The first application to the “Milano Porta Verde” agroecology hub, Italy, outlined: 1. the agro-eco-mosaic structuring and diversification improvement consequent to the agroforestry model spread (higher natural components percentage, agricultural patch shape complexity, landscape heterogeneity, landscape structural diversity, connectivity and circuitry); and 2. the cultural functions provided by participative practices (40 initiatives; 1860 people involved; 10 stakeholder types), enabling cultural landscape rehabilitation processes (higher accessibility, citizen empowerment, community and knowledge building, cultural values building). These results qualitatively inform the ES analysis. The potential ES supply matrices and maps showed an increase, through a transformation scenario, in the total ESs delivered by natural components (+44% support ESs; +36% regulating ESs) and agricultural components (+21% cultural ESs; +15% regulating ESs).

Keywords: agroforestry; peri-urban; trans-disciplinarity; multi-level assessment; ecological functions; cultural functions; landscape ecology; behavioural geography; ecosystem services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11020/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11020/ (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:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:11020-:d:1193805

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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