Salvatore Mellino

The worth of land use: A GIS–emergy evaluation of natural and human-made capital

Natural systems make their natural capital and ecosystem services available to human economy. A careful analysis of the interplay between natural and human-made capital is needed to prevent natural capital being overexploited for present economic benefits, affecting lifestyles and wellbeing of future generations. In this study, the emergy synthesis is used to evaluate the natural and the human-made capital of Campania region (southern Italy) by accounting for the environmental support directly and indirectly provided by nature to resource generation. Furthermore, geographic information system (GIS) models are integrated with the emergy accounting procedure to generate maps of the spatial patterns of both natural and human-made capital distribution. Regional storages of natural and human-made capital are identified and evaluated in emergy units (seJ). The human-made capital of the Campania region (6.29E+24seJ) results to be about 11 times higher than the natural capital (5.69E+23seJ) due to the past and present exploitation of the natural resources needed to generate it over time. Moreover, by overlaying the total natural capital map and the total human-made capital map with a map of the protected areas within the region, only the 19% of the regional natural capital appears to be concentrated within protected areas, while most of it (81%) is concentrated outside. These findings suggest that the conservation of natural resources is also necessary outside protected areas by means of suitable policies, directives and investments. The human-made capital is mainly concentrated (88%) inside non-protected areas and interacts with the local natural capital. A management of the interactions between the two categories of wealth is crucial to prevent that the growth of human-made storages degrades the natural ecosystems and the environment. The proposed emergy-GIS framework reveals to be a useful tool for environmental planning and resource management aimed to conserve and protect the regional environmental heritage.

Spatial Accounting of Environmental Pressure and Resource Consumption Using Night-light Satellite Imagery

Modern societies and economies are highly dependent on fossil energy for their survival. Unfortunately fossil energy resources and minerals are non-renewable and represent finite stocks. Consequently, societies and economies (production, trade and consumption modes) should be reorganized according to the awareness of less resource availability in the future. “Degrowth” and “prosperous way down patterns” have been suggested in order to avoid economic collapse and global societal turmoil and conflicts. This work assesses the dependence of a regional economy (Campania Region, Southern Italy) on non-renewable resources, by means of joint use of spatial modeling and Emergy Accounting. The Emergy method takes into account all the free environmental inputs (such as sunlight, wind, rain, geothermal heat) as well as the input flows of mineral and fossil energy resources, expressed in terms of their solar energy equivalents. Nonrenewable resources used within the regional economy were correlated to nighttime satellite images via GIS (Geographic Information System) methodology, to explore the load of human activities on landscape and ecological communities and to define a human disturbance gradient throughout the Region. This gradient was expressed by means of an emergy-based indicator, the Landscape Development Intensity index (LDI). Results show a high dependence of Campania Region economy from imported resources (about 85% of the total emergy used, U) and a high concentration of non-renewable flows in Napoli and Caserta Provinces. These two regional areas have much higher LDI indices, 44 and 36 respectively, suggesting the need for appropriate land use management actions capable to lower the environmental pressure to more sustainable levels.

Assessing the Environmental Performance and Sustainability of National Agricultural Systems

Agricultural systems are a crucial interface between human societies and nature, in that they “amplify” the human-controlled investments by concentrating natural energies of sun, rain, and nutrients and make them converge to food production. Even if gross economic value, labor and energy expenditures associated to agriculture are unlikely to ever represent a large fraction of the total performance of a national developed economy, yet the role of such a sector goes much beyond the actual food production and calls for higher attention by concerned policy makers. The evaluation of the dynamics and performance of agricultural systems must be carefully investigated from different sustainability points of view (energy, material, economic, environmental, social) to point out how the system and its main driving forces are evolving over time and how can they support a national economy. In this study we compare the agricultural systems of Scotland and Italy over time, by means of an integrated analysis model, SUMMA (SUstainability Multimethod Multiscale Assessment) capable to take into account different dimensions of the investigated systems. The final goal is to understand what are the steps of the investigated processes that are characterized by the lowest performances as well as how the system can be made more robust and resilient in spite of the existing problems (among which increasing energy and resource prices, decreasing land quality, and decreasing marginal productivity).

Monitoring Regional Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Support of an Environmentally Sound Resource Management

The worldwide trend of conversion of forested and wild areas into agricultural and urbanised land under the pressure of increasing population affects the environment in many ways: increases pollution, decreases biodiversity and degrades ecosystems in such a way that they are no longer able to provide their services to humans and other species (e.g. soil formation, photosynthesis, nutrient and water cycling). Scientists and governments are increasingly aware of the negative trends: the urgent need for monitoring and mitigating the negative effects of land use changes requires efforts of environmental protection without decreasing the local carrying capacity for the production of basic resources and services to human society. Such efforts cannot be randomly displayed: it is important to be able to analyse and monitor land use changes, understand the drivers and the impacts, identify the most valuable areas in order to preserve a regional environmental quality. If the integrity of wildlife (forests, water bodies, soil, biodiversity) is not preserved, then, due to urbanisation, agriculturalisation and transport infrastructure implementation, a fragmentation of landscape is likely to occur with the consequent loss of its functionality in providing ecosystem services. This work investigates recent urbanisation processes in the Campania Region and designs maps of impervious surfaces, in order to provide a way to assess the environmental worth and quality of lands. Newly urbanised areas between 1990 and 2006 are about 5200 ha, of which 173 ha have been converted from natural to urban and 5028 ha from agricultural to urban, totally accounting for 0.4 % of the regional area. This recent urbanisation adds to the already urbanised 105,000 ha of the regional area, one third of which is concentrated in the Province of Napoli (about 38,000 ha). Reversing this trend, by means of appropriate environmental planning and resource management, would help to reduce environmental problems associated with landscape overbuilding, loss of natural capital and diminished environmental services.