Valentina Sannicandro

Spatial Multicrierial Evaluation of Soil Consumption as a Tool for SEA

The paper represent a check of the use of multicriteria evaluation in order to add a qualitative evaluation to the traditional quantitative measure of the sustainability of soil consumption. The experiment starts analysing all deriving measure from measures of different typology of soil consumption and land use as criteria to evaluate which part of urbanised land is more expendable for land transformation.

Non-compensatory composite indicators for the evaluation of urban planning policy: The Land-Use Policy Efficiency Index (LUPEI)

Abstract In this research paper, we define and test an ELECTRE III-based approach to the construction of non-compensatory composite indicators; these indicators are used for the evaluation of environmental and social performances of urban and regional planning policies. We tested the methodology for the construction of the Land-Use Policy Efficiency Index (LUPEI) on the municipal scale applied to a sample of municipalities in the Apulia Region (Southern Italy). Based on the literature review concerning composite indicators, we found that linear aggregation rules are the most widely applied aggregation procedures for composite indicators. However, their applicability depends on a set of strong theoretical and operational conditions. If these conditions do not hold, then other aggregation and weighting procedures must be applied to construct the composite indicators. We tested the ELECTRE III via a fruitful interaction with three experts who were participating in a focus group. We found that composite indicators are powerful tools when it comes to the assessment of multidimensional planning issues. Since each sub-indicator provides different information and responds to different goals, rankings and assessment based on mono-indicator frameworks can lead to incomplete or even biased results that do not consider an integrated approach to land-use policy efficiency. Moreover, both experts and decision-makers appreciated the role of composite indicators in increasing knowledge and providing deeper insights into complex phenomena in the domains of urban and regional planning.

Countryside vs City: A User-Centered Approach to Open Spatial Indicators of Urban Sprawl

The interplay between land take and climate change is reviving the debate on the environmental impacts of urbanization. Monitoring and evaluation of land-cover and land-use changes have secured political commitment worldwide, and in the European Union in particular – following the agreement on a “no net land take by 2050” target. This paper addresses the ensuing challenges by investigating how open data services and spatial indicators may help manage urban sprawl more effectively. Experts, scholars, students and local government officials were engaged in a living lab exercise centered around the uptake of geospatial data in planning, policy making and design processes. Main findings point to a great potential, and pressing need, for open spatial data services in mainstreaming sustainable land use practices. However, urban sprawl’s elusiveness calls for interactive approaches, since the actual usability of proposed tools needs to be carefully investigated and planned for.

The Multidimensional Assessment of Land Take and Soil Sealing

In 2006 European Commission stated that soil, fairly recognisable as an ecosystem structure, can be considered essentially as a non-renewable resource, thus triggering both studies for the assessment of land take phenomenon and actions for its mitigation and reduction. In last two decades, a deeper and ecosystem approach to land-use policies targeted to the sustainable development enabled a closer understanding of the complexity of urban dynamics leading to the necessity of multidimensional and integrated approaches for the assessment of the use of resources. The paper presents a multi-dimensional approach to evaluate the phenomenon of land take and soil sealing implemented on a sample of municipalities in Apulia Region, in Southern Italy. The construction of a composite indicator for comparative qualitative and quantitative measurement of land take and soil sealing among the municipalities is aimed at a better evaluation of future urbanisation scenarios and at a monitoring process of urban growth.

Spatial Analysis of Soil Consumption and as Support to Transfer Development Rights Mechanisms

The paper speaks about an experiment about the possibility to identify areas for transfer of development rights,with the aim of contain the soil consumption. The scope is to densify existing settlements. In order to apply a equalitarian rule, an analysis of a equal measure of urban sprawl in the nearest surroundings of a given settlement has been carried out with the application of smoothing techniques.

Integrating Financial Analysis and Decision Theory for the Evaluation of Alternative Reuse Scenarios of Historical Buildings

The expected utility theory assumes that the advantage of an agent under conditions of uncertainty can be calculated as a weighted average of the utilities in each state as possible, by using as weights the likelihood of the occurrence of individual states.

Geographic Data Infrastructure and Support System to the Evaluation of Urban Densification

In urban contexts characterized by the presence of settlements where services are lacking, densification with the transfer of development rights brings benefits, through intensification of urban areas, reduction of the vehicular mobility and containment of soil consumption.

Assessing the Effect of Land Use Planning on Soil Savings by SEA

The paper tells about the activity of the Observatory for Soil Saving at the MITO Lab of Bari Polytechnic, with special regard to one piece of a research project, named cs@monitor, devoted at studying the effectiveness of planning regulation against excessive urban expansion. The cs@monitor Project is aiming to support policy of soil preservation, in the context of the Apulian Region. Coherently with such aim, the paper shows a meta-appraisal of regulations and evaluation in land-use planning, referring not only to the articulations of plans and norms, but attempting to consider as well a most truthful analysis of the state of soils, devoted to discover countermeasures versus the process pressure-fragility-impact described in SEA procedure. The main scope is the discover of the potential of analyzing land-take as first step of Environmental Assessment of Urban Plans, as frequently discussed in literature [1, 2, 3].