Lorena Fiorini

Urban Development in Tuscany. Land Uptake and Landscapes Changes

The phenomenon of urban sprawl has been already recognized as one of the major anthropic threats to natural ecosystems and landscapes while the negative aspects of the phenomenon are still only marginally taken into consideration in the scientific and local government circles. The recent decision of the European Parliament points out that the degradation, fragmentation and non-sustainable use of land in the EU is jeopardizing several important ecosystem services, threatening biodiversity and increasing Europe’s vulnerability to climate change, natural disasters and desertification. The study regards the processing of data on urban land conversion over the past 50 years and the effects in the areas of high environmental vulnerability in one of the most important Italian region: Tuscany. The historical data were compared from a qualitative and quantitative viewpoint with the present-day geography of settlements, which showing changes found in today’s settlement-territorial structure. The conclusion reports focuses on collated environmental criticalities and the margins for recovery of the compromised territories that still today receive little attention from central institutions and local authorities, in addition to data on landscape effects to be construed as signs of specific trends underway today and scarcely taken into account by land management tools.

Il riassetto del suolo urbano italiano: questione di "sprinkling"?

Diverse ricerche in corso in Italia stanno indagando nel dettaglio i processi di urbanizzazione che hanno condotto alle particolari forme compromissorie e dissipative nella utilizzazione del suolo che e possibile riscontrare attualmente. La conoscenza di tali processi, anche molto differenti per tempi, luoghi e modelli espressivi, potrebbe consentire l’adozione di nuove regole per una razionale distribuzione degli usi. Gia da tempo emergono categorie tipologiche che distinguono piuttosto nettamente i fenomeni nazionali da quelli piu consolidati di altri Paesi e continenti, giustificando il ricorso a nuove definizioni. Da queste ultime, connotabili mediante set di adeguati indicatori, discendono poi soglie e criteri di intervento che si presentano fin d’ora complessi in termini di coinvolgimento socioeconomico, ambientale e politico e, conseguentemente, di tecniche urbanistiche mirate

The Italian Apennines between earthquakes, high naturalness and urban growth

This paper sets out the results of a study conducted in the inland areas in central Italy on certain phenomena that, for decades, have evolved separately: urban and socio-economic growth, environmental and cultural conservation and the curbing of seismic risk. The study was carried out by analysing the urban conversion of land in the Italian Apennines over the past 50 years, focusing on areas of varying seismic hazard. Our analysis highlights that territorial planning has failed to tackle this risk in an integrated manner, implementing entirely uncoordinated actions that have produced poor results. Thus, our main goal is to study urban development and its effects on the Apennine system and devise possible strategies to mitigate the seismic risk in this area of significant worth, but made extremely vulnerable by policies and solutions that have never been “nature-based”.

Spatial Methods to Measure Natura 2000 Sites Insularization in Italy

It is interesting to notice how Nature 2000 is described as an instrument of “widespread ecological network throughout the EU territories”, insisting in a definitional imprecision that has been dragging on for more than twenty years, and that was often, also authoritatively, criticized by many. Undoubtedly, many of these elements constitute the focal point of local ecological networks for species conservation importance, but their functionality depends on equally undoubtedly by the presence of ecologically permeable matrices that enable the biotic flows dynamics. The Italian Regions are the subjects of this study, as an expression of homogeneous forms of territorial government and as a reference on the administrative level for the implementation of Community policies for Nature 2000 network. The method followed in the work refers to an evaluate spatial fragmentation conditions methodology and the SCIs are the evaluated patches, which have a high dispersion on the national territory. This research has been conducted to show how the central issue of habitat and species conservation is still currently the fragmentation provoked by mobility infrastructures and urban growth.

L’espansione urbana nel sistema costiero sardo. Analisi, diagnosi e prospettive

L’obiettivo e quello di indagare gli effetti delle trasformazioni urbane che hanno interessato dagli anni ’50 ad oggi la Regione Sardegna, meta turistica di eccellenza del Mediterraneo. Considerando che la conversione urbana del suolo e ritenuta oggi una delle maggiori minacce antropiche a carico dell’ecosistema, la ricerca ha analizzato le dinamiche di queste trasformazioni sull’intero territorio e nel sistema costiero, facendo emergere modalita ed intensita dei fenomeni in gran parte inedite. La forte attrattivita turistica dei luoghi ha generato un problema politico oltre che urbanistico, al quale la regione ha cercato di porre rimedio con strumenti normativi e di pianificazione. L’analisi dei dati evidenzia le responsabilita gestionali dei singoli comuni al fine di consentire una riflessione sugli indirizzi urbanistici futuri in termini di governance ecosostenibile

L’emergenza post-sisma a L’Aquila, enfasi di una pianificazione debole

L’estrema disgregazione del tessuto insediativo aquilano rilevata dopo il sisma del 2009 e stata spesso imputata ad una deregulation dettata dall’emergenza. Tuttavia, analizzando gli strumenti che avrebbero dovuto governare l’assetto del territorio dagli anni ’50 ad oggi e i loro esiti, emerge che la configurazione urbana degli ultimi anni e l’estrema conseguenza di una pianificazione debole. Il presente lavoro si prefigge di verificare tale tesi col supporto di indici e dati analitici.

Dati sulla urbanizzazione italiana: verso la terza generazione

In this current period, several attempts to classify the “made artificial” areas are occurring and tend to identify the categories on which match the amount of adverse environmental deterioration. Today the “institutional” database does not exist in appropriate scales that can provide an o cial fact, uniform and reliable, whereas there are a number of methodologies and information from scientific sources and pseudo such.