Urban Growth, Land-use Efficiency and Local Socioeconomic Context: A Comparative Analysis of 417 Metropolitan Regions in Europe.

The present study presents a multidimensional analysis of land-use efficiency in terms of per-capita built-up area over 417 metropolitan regions from 27 European countries. The study period encompasses two urban phases including economic expansion (2000-2007) and crisis (2008-2015). Multiple geographical gradients were identified as relevant predictors of land-use efficiency across Europe. The socioeconomic variables most associated with high land-use efficiency were per-capita disposable income (in Western, Atlantic and Central Europe) and income growth during 2000-2007 (in Eastern Europe), indicating that wealthier cities are characterized by higher land-use efficiency. Land-use efficiency increased in contexts with diversified urban landscapes.

Resilient landscapes in Mediterranean urban areas: Understanding factors influencing forest trends.

Urban and peri-urban forests are recognized as basic elements for Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), as they preserve and may increase environmental quality in urbanized contexts. For this reason, the amount of forest land per inhabitant is a pivotal efficiency indicator to be considered in the sustainable governance, land management, planning and design of metropolitan areas. The present study illustrates a multivariate analysis of per-capita forest area (PFA) in mainland Attica, the urban region surrounding Athens, Greece. Attica is considered a typical case of Mediterranean urbanization where planning has not regulated urban expansion and successive waves of spontaneous growth have occurred over time. In such a context, an analysis of factors that can affect landscape changes in terms of PFA may inform effective strategies for the sustainable management of socio-ecological local systems in light of the NBS perspective. A total of 26 indicators were collected per decade at the municipal scale in the study area with the aim to identify the factors most closely associated to the amount of PFA. Indicators of urban morphology and functions have been considered together with environmental and topographical variables. In Attica, PFA showed a progressive decrease between 1960 and 2010. In particular, PFA progressively declined (1980, 1990) along fringe areas surrounding Athens and in peri-urban districts experiencing dispersed expansion of residential settlements. Distance from core cities and from the seacoast, typical urban functions (e.g., multiple use of buildings and per capita built-up area) and percentage of agricultural land-use in each municipality are the variables most associated with high PFA. In recent years, some municipalities have shown an expansion of forest cover, mainly due to land abandonment and forest recolonization. Findings from this case study have allowed us to identify priorities for NBS at metropolitan level aimed at promoting more sustainable urbanization. Distinctively, proposed NBS basically focus on (i) the effective protection of crop mosaics with relict woodlots; (ii) the improvement of functionality, quality and accessibility of new forests; and (iii) the establishment of new forests in rural municipalities.

Active governance of agro-pastoral, forest and protected areas mitigates wildfire impacts in Italy.

Wildfire regimes affected by global change have been the cause of major concern in recent years. Both direct prevention (e.g., fuel management planning) and land governance strategies (e.g., agroforestry development) can have an indirect regulatory effect on wildfires. Herein, we tested the hypothesis that active land planning and management in Italy have mitigated wildfire impacts in terms of loss of ecosystem services and forest cover, and burned wildland-urban interface, from 2007 to 2017. At the national scale, we assessed the effect size of major potential fire drivers such as climate, weather, flammability, socio-economic descriptors, land use changes, and proxies for land governance (e.g., European funds for rural development, investments in sustainable forest management, agro-pastoral activities), including potential interactions, on fire-related impacts via Random Forest modelling and Generalized Additive Mixed Model. Agro-forest districts (i.e., aggregations of neighbouring municipalities with homogeneous forest and agricultural characteristics) were used as spatial units of analysis. Our results confirm that territories with more active land governance show lower wildfire impacts, even under severe flammability and climatic conditions. This study supports current regional, national, and European strategies towards "fire resistant and resilient landscapes" by fostering agro-forestry, rural development, and nature conservation integrated policies.