Papers by Alessandro Marucci
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2023
Proceedings e report
In Italy, the transformative predictions of the municipal urban planning instruments are very oft... more In Italy, the transformative predictions of the municipal urban planning instruments are very often far away from the socio-economic dynamics. In fact, the political component considers the oversizing of urban transformative projections as a solution to improve the situation of the territories in crisis for several aspects. This work analyses the projections of the urban planning instruments in force in the coastal municipalities of Emilia-Romagna. The work aims to highlight how the planned urban areas can change the future settlement structure in the case study area.
WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, 2018
In this paper, we describe some indicators used to interpret urban sprawl and some of its effects... more In this paper, we describe some indicators used to interpret urban sprawl and some of its effects on the environmental and ecosystem matrix. These are examples taken from a number of research programs that the University of L'Aquila has been engaged in over the past ten years that have produced more than 15 new indicators of urban sprawl and the numerous threats that the latter poses for land and the environment. Using some parameters we were able to prove that the expansive settlement model that prevailed in Italy over the past 50 years does not follow the conventional international standard of sprawl, but has a different pattern named "sprinkling". Other indicators show that this growth is independent of population dynamics, at least at microterritorial level (municipalities), while the result is different on a macroterritorial scale (regions). Furthermore, this highly sprinkled type of settlement also has adverse effects on the fragmentation of ecosystems and biodiversity hot spots and using other indices we were able to highlight these phenomena too, which are scarcely considered as territorial "diseases" that need to be tackled and overcome. Carefully designed sets of parameters, such as those described in this paper, should be included in technologyassisted regional platforms to control and govern land transformation, in order to make the pursuit of improved land planning more efficient than what it is today.
Dopo il sisma abruzzese del 2009 e emerso il ruolo fondamentale che assolvono i vuoti urbani e, p... more Dopo il sisma abruzzese del 2009 e emerso il ruolo fondamentale che assolvono i vuoti urbani e, piu in generale, gli spazi liberi. Alcuni di questi luoghi “non costruiti” hanno pero manifestato una importanza diversa da altri, sia nello svolgimento delle funzioni di emergenza, sia nel recupero successivo. Anche in una citta estremamente dilatata, che dopo il sisma lo e diventata ancor di piu, i vuoti urbani di qualita sono stati utilizzati piu efficacemente e piu velocemente sono tornati al loro uso precedente. La stessa cosa non sta accadendo per gli spazi liberi a diverso titolo che, seppur intensivamente usati per le funzioni richieste dall’evento sismico, presentano oggi molte incertezze sul loro destino futuro che non esclude l’abbandono e il degrado. Molte di queste aree hanno una importanza centrale per garantire e migliorare le funzioni di connettivita ecologica di un territorio urbano interposto tra i maggiori serbatoi di biodiversita dell’Appennino Centrale. Le scelte di r...
It is interesting to notice how Nature 2000 is described as an instrument of “widespread ecologic... more 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....
Rivers have been the hub of economic and social development in the human evolution, because they ... more Rivers have been the hub of economic and social development in the human evolution, because they are essential resources for: agricultural development, infrastructure networks and development of the first urban strategies. Territory has had a radical transformation that led to a national average urbanization of about 10%; but this development has happened with different degrees of awareness and without uniform models and criteria. One of the main causes of this is due to an extreme fragmentation of planning, because the municipalities’ plans are a binding power modality, in force in Italy, but they don’t have significant and strategic references at regional and territorial scale. In particular, the Italian river areas have undergone a real siege by urban growth, outlining a critical scenario in terms of risks for the population and for the natural system. Some disciplines such as landscape ecology have contributed substantially to the integration of some environmental issues that ha...
On the ecological network functional structure, the National Parks undoubtedly represent core are... more On the ecological network functional structure, the National Parks undoubtedly represent core areas that play a key role on the biodiversity conservation strategies. The Italian National Parks system is characterized by the historic settlements presence, which represents a territorial peculiarity. On the one hand, this characteristic contributed to maintaining an enormous wealth of biodiversity and landscapes while, on the other hand, it strongly quickened the anthropic disturbance with certainly not negligible effects on the ecological connectivity. The years of intensive urban growth coincide in Italy with a period of almost stasis environmental legislation condition. Furthermore, the land planning penalized both by a lack of strategic vision and by the absence of a clear planning and programming framework. The main aim of this work is to highlight the conditions of presence of high pressures (derived to urban and infrastructural systems) and high environmental values by direction...
Cities, 2021
Abstract This paper deals with the challenging issue of illegal building in Italy with a view to ... more Abstract This paper deals with the challenging issue of illegal building in Italy with a view to clearing up the picture on this subject matter. This phenomenon is scarcely treated from an analytical/scientific point of view, especially in international literature. However, it is very present in the social and journalistic debate. Our research highlights the objective lack of data needed to gauge this offence, which is less endemic than is believed. Furthermore, it proves that existing data are insufficient to produce results, which often range between reality and prejudice, depicting some areas of the country in an extremely negative way. The first part of this paper describes the extreme complexity in acquiring “real” data and the total nation-wide lack of technical-administrative structures and methods capable of producing acceptably reliable information. In the second part, an emblematic case study is presented and its history traced back. We show that the multiform phenomena associated with illegal building create an enormous and rhetorical stratification of actions that ultimately do not lead to any appreciable result. This underscores the powerlessness of the administrative, regulatory and technical apparatus towards this particular infringement of territorial law.
Journal of Urban Planning and Development, 2021
Abstract This article sets out our research on the issue of dispersed urbanization (urban dust) a... more Abstract This article sets out our research on the issue of dispersed urbanization (urban dust) and methods of reducing and controlling the phenomenon of land take. The case study of the Umbria reg...
Land, 2020
The research presented in the paper intends to overcome an information gap on the evolution of ur... more The research presented in the paper intends to overcome an information gap on the evolution of urbanized surfaces in Italy which in the studies carried out so far have never been available. The only historical data on this form of land use date back to the 1950s, and were extracted from a national cartography created by the Military Geographic Institute. The next chronological section available was then that of the noughties, already digital. However, much more frequent data were processed by the ten-year censuses by the National Institute of Statistics, but concerning buildings and not urbanized areas. By processing building census data, this study has put together some novel information on land take dynamics between the end of World War II and the year 2000, highlighting the more intensive processes that occurred at an extraordinary rate in the ‘70′s and ‘80′s, obtaining unprecedented information on the speed of transformation of the territory in these decades of economic boom. Th...
AIMS Environmental Science, 2020
Thirty years after the widespread establishment of the concepts of environmental continuity in Eu... more Thirty years after the widespread establishment of the concepts of environmental continuity in Europe and Italy, linked to the EU Habitat Directive and the Natura 2000 project, these have almost completely lost their impetus. After having fostered a very intense scientific and political/administrative/managerial period, these concepts have produced only a few virtuous examples of implementation. The study presented in this paper shows that today national environmental quality is almost entirely based on land use categories that are scarcely protected and not subject to sufficiently binding planning. Moreover, their functional structure and extension/quality depend on how the local and global market impact spatially complementary categories mostly affected by anthropic action, which instead undergo efficiently planned changes. From the fundamental paradigm of "ecological networks" the interests of the scientific world and local authorities have shifted to other fronts, losing that physical and conceptual cohesion inherent in "environmental continuity" as a value in itself. The availability of recent, very advanced data helps take stock of this issue and verify critical points on the national territory that have been unresolved for several decades, but still rife with potential for the application of models of international value.
Land Use Policy, 2021
Abstract After thirty years of the framework legislation for parks, their effect on the territori... more Abstract After thirty years of the framework legislation for parks, their effect on the territories and social communities that created new national park institutes in 1991 was investigated. Some significant indicators were used, such as demography, the structure of records and income conditions, and it emerged that the National Parks did not lead to a clear separation from the dynamics that were already in effect after World War II, and which are typical of the disadvantaged areas in which they are established, in all of that time. There are undoubtedly many causes for this, and they also differ from park to park. In a country like Italy, these certainly depend on the geographic location, since significant socio-economic differences are found along its latitudinal line.
Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 2018
This paper sets out the results of a study conducted in the inland areas in central Italy on cert... more 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”.
Sustainability, 2020
Inner areas are the most peripheral Italian municipalities and they are characterized by clear lo... more Inner areas are the most peripheral Italian municipalities and they are characterized by clear loss of both public and private services. They represent one of the relevant elements in national and regional planning policy and the Italian government has made available a fund (€ 100 million) for small municipalities up to 5000 inhabitants (Law n. 158/2017). These areas have gradually seen an evident process of marginalisation, which is difficult to evaluate because it is the result of several factors. This work describes an applied methodology for this marginality assessment on the Italian inner areas, which was developed through the quantification of eight criteria selected from Law n. 158/2017. The analysis carried out two different simulations for elaborating and mapping territorial disadvantages, with the use of GIS software and MATLAB. The analysis highlights an evident clustering in specific geographic areas. Moreover, this result confirms that there is a significant chaining of...
Sustainability, 2019
This paper discusses the topic of urban and spatial planning in Italy where decision-making is le... more This paper discusses the topic of urban and spatial planning in Italy where decision-making is left almost exclusively to the innumerable, small municipalities present in the country and totaling almost 8000 in number. Projects and actions to transform built areas, infrastructure, and welfare services of all sorts and purposes in a national territory of over 300,000 km2 are supervised by countless mayors, municipal councils, and boards that govern plots of land corresponding to polygons of a few kilometers per side. This is generally achieved by means of town plans developed outside of any general rule or protocol, the contents of which are often ignored as a result of national legislation that weakens them and sometimes makes them uninfluential essentially. This is a European example of urban planning mismanagement that deserves to be brought to the broader attention of the European technical and scientific community, also because the debate developed so far on this topic—even by e...
Journal of Urban Management, 2018
The present paper describes a research that, based on the evolutionary data of the urban settleme... more The present paper describes a research that, based on the evolutionary data of the urban settlement over a period of half a century, shows the changes undergone by the various landscape categories of Southern Italy. The regions involved are four (Campania, Basilicata, Puglia and Calabria) and share renowned urban, economic and social issues such as unauthorised development, low income per capita and organised crime. All this has produced profound transformations on some of the most important and rare Italian landscapes, such as coastal plains and coastal carbonate slabs. Uncontrolled urban sprawl has further provoked an environmental crisis and eco-friendly insularisation of the yet numerous and valuable protected areas of this geographical area, thus leading to a high density of buildings and infrastructures even in national parks, breaking European records in this respect. Through finalised indicators, the characteristics of the evolution occurred have been analytically highlighted, and by using the latest generation satellite data, it is shown how such phenomena have continued to take place with significant energy over the last few years. The result is a picture of environmental threats still very prominent in this southern extremity of the peninsula, above all towards those naturalistic qualities and landscapes that are the main attractions of an intense national and international tourism whose income, however, has not been conveyed in a correct and inclusive way to allow high-level socio-economic conditions of the resident population.
Sustainability, 2017
This article relates to the concept of urban expansion reduction in limited areas, called "de-spr... more This article relates to the concept of urban expansion reduction in limited areas, called "de-sprinkling districts", and methods of designation of their range, as well as modelling and management of their network. This concept was developed from research concluded in 2016, referring to 50 years of urban evolution in Italy, that investigated and diagnosed the forms of urban growth focusing on the Italian model. For this model, the authors of this paper proposed an alternative definition (urban sprinkling) with respect to the sprawl international standard. Certainly this urban model established in Italy during the mentioned years is due to an inefficient control of peripheral areas and new conurbations' development, both in forms and functions. The cause is to be searched for in the importance given to single towns' general plans and the minor role of strategic planning (province and region). The political and social assumption that urban development according to the extreme sprinkling model is no longer feasible is gaining ground. However, implementing de-sprinkling processes will not be easy. In this paper, criteria to create a decision support system (DSS) for administrators and municipalities is illustrated. These criteria aim at dealing, technically and politically, with sprinkling and planning medium-term containment.
Rendiconti Lincei. Scienze Fisiche e Naturali, 2019
The present work is part of the Road Ecology theme, and thus, the fragmentation of ecosystems cau... more The present work is part of the Road Ecology theme, and thus, the fragmentation of ecosystems caused by road networks, a very important phenomenon throughout Italy, but especially in the central part of the peninsula where there is a high concentration of natural areas of European importance. The research was carried out with the aim to implement a method for measuring fragmentation caused by the large regional road network towards the Special Conservation Zones (SCZs) of Natura 2000 system (92/43/CEE-Habitat Directive). The goal of the method described herein is to provide the region with design instructions, which will be part of a pilot project following the current one, to mitigate the intense landscape fragmentation identified in this crucial central region of Italy. Since 2002, the region had already resolved on the implementation of an ecological regional network (RERU), but the work carried out provides the necessary information to achieve full efficiency in the connections between the different habitats by identifying gaps that may actually allow wildlife to move from one area to another. This is an essential knowledge in a territory that, even though of high overall environmental value, is crossed by a dense network of infrastructural road barriers almost entirely occlusive. Work materials have been processed as part of a LIFE Nature project "SUN" under the leadership of the Umbria Region.
Science of The Total Environment, 2019
Between 2001 and 2011, the Po Valley area saw an increase of 630 km 2 in urban areas. • The preva... more Between 2001 and 2011, the Po Valley area saw an increase of 630 km 2 in urban areas. • The prevailing model of urban growth is the UDI 0 (aggregated urban growth). • The LST in daytime conditions was an average increase of +1,36 °C in the study area. • Quantitative framework between increased urbanised areas and LST change performed. • The UDI + (urban dispersion) shows an increase in the minimum differential recorded.
Sustainability, 2018
This paper describes a critical situation for Italy, which is one of the causes of the overall di... more This paper describes a critical situation for Italy, which is one of the causes of the overall disorganization of settlement growth in the past decades. Using the data extracted from some institutional databases, we show that a large part of the national territory is managed with highly effective decision-making tools (such as municipal town planning schemes in Italy), which are, however, lagging behind in their conception and fulfilment of scientific, cultural, and political requirements deemed essential today for effective and sustainable land transformation. Municipalities with plans dating back to a quarter of a century ago, or without any plans, are 1445 in number (17% of the total) and involve 6,200,000 ha of territory (1/5 of Italy) with almost 10 million residents. The territorial changes in these geographical areas, mainly concentrated in the south, are managed with tools based on mid-20th century concepts and techniques, although a large proportion of these territories are...
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Papers by Alessandro Marucci