Claude Napoléone

Peri-urban agro-ecosystems in the Mediterranean: diversity, dynamics, and drivers

To address sustainability challenges of agro-ecosystems located in Mediterranean urban regions, this paper focuses on the multidisciplinary subject of urban agricultural systems. To better understand the diversity and dynamics of peri-urban agro-ecosystems and the main drivers of their sustainability, we compare six case studies located in Southern Europe (Montpellier, France; Pisa, Italy; Lisbon, Portugal; Athens, Greece) and the Maghreb (Constantine, Algeria; Meknes, Morocco). The research is based on fieldwork in each urban region (qualitative analysis) and literature analysis aimed to position each case study in its national and Mediterranean contexts. The comparison between local contexts indicates large discrepancies in the integration of environmental focus among the respective urban planning objectives. Generally, urbanization tends to accentuate agricultural diversity. The different forms of peri-urban agriculture evolve despite their persistent decline, and they also show a capacity to resist and even new growth in response to urban demand.

The PRECOS framework: Measuring the impacts of the global changes on soils, water, agriculture on territories to better anticipate the future

In a context of increased land and natural resources scarcity, the possibilities for local authorities and stakeholders of anticipating evolutions or testing the impact of envisaged developments through scenario simulation are new challenges. PRECOSs approach integrates data pertaining to the fields of water and soil resources, agronomy, urbanization, land use and infrastructure etc. It is complemented by a socio-economic and regulatory analysis of the territory illustrating its constraints and stakes. A modular architecture articulates modeling software and spatial and temporal representations tools. It produces indicators in three core domains: soil degradation, water and soil resources and agricultural production. As a territory representative of numerous situations of the Mediterranean Basin (urban pressures, overconsumption of spaces, degradation of the milieus), a demonstration in the Craus area (Southeast of France) has allowed to validate a prototype of the approach and to test its feasibility in a real life situation. Results on the Crau area have shown that, since the beginning of the 16th century, irrigated grasslands are the cornerstones of the anthropic-system, illustrating how successfully mens multi-secular efforts have maintained a balance between environment and local development. But today the ecosystem services are jeopardized firstly by urban sprawl and secondly by climate change. Pre-diagnosis in regions of Emilia-Romagna (Italy) and Valencia (Spain) show that local end-users and policy-makers are interested by this approach. The modularity of indicator calculations and the availability of geo-databases indicate that PRECOS may be up scaled in other socio-economic contexts.

Efficiency and equity in land conservation: The effects of policy scale

This paper studies the effects of policy scale for land conservation schemes based on global objectives but implemented at local levels. They are explored in the classical reserve site selection framework for policy efficiency, to which we add the common social objective of equity between spatial units. We first analyze the role of the biophysical attributes of land available for conservation. These natural endowments are then combined with different implementation scales to improve a particular land-based social function: natural habitats for biodiversity. An empirical illustration, based on data from the Provence region of France, is used to explore what we identify as a policy scale trade-off between administrative units. This shows the importance of land availability in predicting the distribution of the costs and benefits of conservation schemes. In terms of equity, we find an interior solution that minimizes an inequality metric (the Gini coefficient) along policy scales. Our approach should lead to more socially acceptable conservation objectives, between the usual two extreme cases of autarky and specialization.