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Unraveling Latent Aspects of Urban Expansion: Desertification Risk Reveals More

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 iden...

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Autores principales: Egidi, Gianluca, Zambon, Ilaria, Tombolin, Ilaria, Salvati, Luca, Cividino, Sirio, Seifollahi-Aghmiuni, Samaneh, Kalantari, Zahra
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7312172/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32512906
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17114001
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author Egidi, Gianluca
Zambon, Ilaria
Tombolin, Ilaria
Salvati, Luca
Cividino, Sirio
Seifollahi-Aghmiuni, Samaneh
Kalantari, Zahra
author_facet Egidi, Gianluca
Zambon, Ilaria
Tombolin, Ilaria
Salvati, Luca
Cividino, Sirio
Seifollahi-Aghmiuni, Samaneh
Kalantari, Zahra
author_sort Egidi, Gianluca
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-73121722020-06-26 Unraveling Latent Aspects of Urban Expansion: Desertification Risk Reveals More Egidi, Gianluca Zambon, Ilaria Tombolin, Ilaria Salvati, Luca Cividino, Sirio Seifollahi-Aghmiuni, Samaneh Kalantari, Zahra Int J Environ Res Public Health Article 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. MDPI 2020-06-04 2020-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7312172/ /pubmed/32512906 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17114001 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Egidi, Gianluca
Zambon, Ilaria
Tombolin, Ilaria
Salvati, Luca
Cividino, Sirio
Seifollahi-Aghmiuni, Samaneh
Kalantari, Zahra
Unraveling Latent Aspects of Urban Expansion: Desertification Risk Reveals More
title Unraveling Latent Aspects of Urban Expansion: Desertification Risk Reveals More
title_full Unraveling Latent Aspects of Urban Expansion: Desertification Risk Reveals More
title_fullStr Unraveling Latent Aspects of Urban Expansion: Desertification Risk Reveals More
title_full_unstemmed Unraveling Latent Aspects of Urban Expansion: Desertification Risk Reveals More
title_short Unraveling Latent Aspects of Urban Expansion: Desertification Risk Reveals More
title_sort unraveling latent aspects of urban expansion: desertification risk reveals more
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7312172/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32512906
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17114001
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