About
88
Publications
18,038
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
1,179
Citations
Publications
Publications (88)
Forest ecosystems are increasingly subject to disturbances, such as extreme (climate) events, fires and pathological outbreaks, which exert significant (and still poorly quantified) economic impacts, despite their intrinsic resilience. How forest management addresses these challenges will have profound effects on human health, environmental diversi...
This study investigates the land-use/population mix over time as the base to derive an indicator of urban sprawl. Land-use individual patches (provided by Urban Atlas, hereafter UA, with a detailed spatial geometry at 1:10,000 scale) were associated with the total (resident) population based on official statistics (census enumeration districts and...
In the search for a better administrative functioning as a key dimension of economic performances, changes in municipal boundaries and the creation (or suppression) of local administrative units reflect a progressive adjustment to a spatially varying population size and density. With intense population growth, municipal size reflects the overall am...
Despite intense efforts, information systems for Land Degradation assessment need extensive research implementation at both regional and country scale. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification identified critical hotspots of land degradation worldwide recognizing the joint action of drivers such as soil depletion, landscape transform...
Vulnerability to land degradation in Mediterranean Europe increased substantially in the last decades because of the latent interplay of climate and land-use change, progressive soil deterioration, and rising human pressure. The present study provides a quantitative evaluation of the intrinsic change over time in the level of vulnerability to land...
The present contribution discusses recent findings in environmental issues dealing with desertification risk and regional disparities in the Mediterranean basin. By focusing on key socioeconomic factors underlying land and soil degradation (population growth, urban sprawl, coastalization, agricultural intensification, and land abandonment), this co...
Moving toward a land-use approach that focuses on settlement structure, the present study introduces an indicator of compactness based on the evolution over time of the number of detached buildings in total stock at local scale. Assuming the modalities of settlement expansion as dependent on the interplay among socioeconomic aspects, territorial co...
Although sustainable development and desertification risk are hegemonic concepts in environmental economics, their intimate relationship was occasionally studied and made spatially explicit. The present study contributes to fill this knowledge gap by delineating a statistical procedure that investigates, at the municipal scale in Italy, the associa...
This commentary debates on the role of multiple socioeconomic drivers of fringe land degradation (including, but not limited to, population and social dynamics, economic polarization, and developmental policies), as a novel contribution to the desertification assessment in Southern European metropolitan regions, a recognized hotspot of desertificat...
Metropolitan fringes in Southern Europe preserve, under different territorial contexts, natural habitats, relict woodlands, and mixed agro-forest systems acting as a sink of biodiversity and ecosystem services in ecologically vulnerable landscapes. Clarifying territorial and socioeconomic processes that underlie land-use change in metropolitan regi...
This study examines the intrinsic relationship between land degradation and the accumulation of wealth at various planning scales in Italy, a desertification hotspot in Southern Europe. Local development was scrutinized at four planning scales (administrative regions, provinces, economic districts, and municipalities) to verify if land sensitivity...
Globally, processes that drive urbanization have mostly evolved within economic downturns. Economic crises have been more severe and frequent, particularly in the Mediterranean region. However, studies on the recession effects on urbanization are limited. The present study explores possible differences in spatial direction and intensity of land-use...
Economic downturns have shaped the intrinsic mechanisms underlying urban expansion worldwide. Despite strength and pervasiveness of recent recessions, empirical results documenting the aggregate effect of economic downturns on urbanization and land-use change in Southern Europe are rather scarce. By considering a sequence of expansion and recession...
The couple rapid urbanization and policy failure in controlling urban expansion was sometimes associated to soil and land degradation phenomena in both developing and developed countries. This work points to investigate the link between exurban development and soil/land degradation in the region of Athens (Greece) as a typical semiarid Mediterranea...
Land degradation and, subsequently, desertification processes are conditioned by biophysical factors and human impacts. Nowadays, there is an increasing interest by social scientists to assess its implications. Especially, it is relevant to the potential changes and landscape deterioration on population, economic systems and feedbacks of local soci...
The long-term impact of demographic transitions on the spatial distribution of human settlements was occasionally evaluated in Europe. Assuming the distinctive role of urban–rural divides, our study investigates local-scale population trends (1861–2017) in Southern Italy, a disadvantaged region of Mediterranean Europe, as a result of long-term soci...
This work provides a multi-scale, multi-temporal assessment of the robustness of 6 indicators of land degradation aggregated at various spatial domains relevant to environmental reporting. Based on the Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) approach – widely used for environmental reporting of land degradation in Europe – we tested six indicators inc...
Climate change leverages landscape transformations and exerts variable pressure on natural environments and rural systems. Earlier studies outlined how Mediterranean Europe has become a global hotspot of climate warming and land use change. The present work assumes the olive tree, a typical Mediterranean crop, as a candidate bioclimatic indicator,...
This study investigates long-term landscape transformations (1949-2016) in urban Rome, Central Italy, through a spatial distribution of seven metrics (core, islet, perforation, edge, loop, bridge, branch) derived from a Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA) analyzed separately for seven land-use classes (built-up areas, arable land, crop mo...
The Mediterranean region is exposed to desertification risk because of the joint impact of soil degradation, land-use change and global warming, although the individual role of such drivers has been occasionally investigated. The present study clarifies the spatial linkage between desertification risk and urbanization, intended as a pervasive form...
Diachronic variations in demographic rates have frequently reflected social transformations and a (more or less evident) impact of sequential economic downturns. By assessing changes over time in Total Fertility Rate (TFR) at the regional scale in Italy, our study investigates the long-term transition (1952–2019) characteristic of Mediterranean fer...
Soil loss and peri-urban settlement expansion are key issues in urban sustainability, with multi-disciplinary implications that go beyond individual ecological and socioeconomic dimensions. Our study illustrates an assessment framework diachronically evaluating urbanization-driven soil quality loss in a Southern European metropolitan region (Athens...
The linkage between land-use change and demographic transitions in advanced countries has becoming increasingly complex because of the mutual interplay of environmental and socioeconomic spheres influencing the degree of sustainability of both regional and local developmental processes. The relationship between urbanization and economic development...
Density-dependent population growth is a powerful engine of metropolitan expansion. However, spatial heterogeneity in demographic dynamics of advanced economies makes identification of density-dependent mechanisms of population growth a particularly hard task. The intrinsic linkage between long-term population increase, settlement expansion, and ec...
Understanding Soil Degradation Processes (SDPs) is a fundamental issue for humankind. Soil degradation involves complex processes that are influenced by a multifaceted ensemble of socioeconomic and ecological factors at vastly different spatial scales. Desertification risk (the ultimate outcome of soil degradation, seen as an irreversible process o...
The long-term expansion and the evolution of town planning of a contemporary European metropolis (Athens, Greece) has been analysed in this study in order to evaluate how sustainable urban growth has been taken into account in sequential strategic master plans. During the last decades, the mostly unplanned urban growth and massive housing construct...
In a context of aging, low fertility, and progressive slowdown of both internal population mobility and international migration at working age, residential mobility at older ages was regarded as an emerging phenomenon in Mediterranean Europe, a region with increasingly attractive retirement places. The present work discusses the socioeconomic proce...
One of the most challenging issues in Mediterranean ecosystems to date has been to understand the emergence of discontinuous changes or catastrophic shifts. In the era of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, which encompass ideas around Land Degradation Neutrality, advancing this understanding has become even more critical and urgent. The aim of...
Land degradation is more evident where conditions of environmental vulnerability already exist because of arid climate and unsustainable forms of land exploitation. Consequently, semi-arid and dry areas have been identified as vulnerable land, requiring attention from both science and policy perspectives. In some regions, such as the Mediterranean...
The unequal growth of population and buildings in metropolitan regions reflects dispersed urban expansion. This study illustrates an operational framework grounded on a diachronic analysis of urbanization processes in advanced economies that provides a comprehensive evaluation of the mismatch between resident population and building stock. Studying...
Multifaceted demographic dynamics have shaped population growth in Mediterranean Europe, reflecting a metropolitan cycle from urbanization to re-urbanization. To assess the distinctive impact of economic downturns on population dynamics, the present study illustrates the results of an exploratory analysis that assesses urban expansion and rural dec...
Considering settlement characteristics and population dynamics together over multiple spatio-temporal scales, the present study analyzes the spatial distribution of sparse settlements and population surrounding a large city in Southern Europe (Athens, Greece), in relation with long-term metropolitan growth and recent economic downturns. Results of...
Desertification constantly and diachronically manifested itself as one of the most critical environmental issues to be confronted and mitigated by society. This work presents the development of a land desertification risk Expert System (ES) for assessing the application of different land management practices by utilizing indicators through a desert...
Agro-food chains are a coupled social-ecological system (SES). The actors involved in the agro-food chain (farmers, processing, distribution and retail industries, consumers) take decisions that feed back into the different components of the food chain as well as into the agroecosystem within which they are embedded. In the light of global warming...
Depopulation and economic marginalization of rural districts have induced a progressive land abandonment in agricultural and pastoral districts. In Europe, areas at higher risk of farmland abandonment are characterized by low‐intensity pasture systems whose fate is strongly dependent on state incentives or subsidies to rural development promoting m...
Mediterranean regions have experienced a shift from accelerated urban growth typical of a post-industrial phase to a more recent spatial delocalization of population and economic activities reflecting discontinuous settlement expansion, land take, and the abandonment of cultivated areas around central cities. On the basis of a comprehensive analysi...
Mediterranean regions are likely to be the most vulnerable areas to wildfires in Europe. In this context, land-use change has promoted land abandonment and the consequent accumulation of biomass (fuel) in (progressively less managed) forests and (non-forest) natural land, causing higher fire density and severity, economic damage, and land degradati...
Resilience thinking is an appropriate framework when assessing the transitional potential of complex urban systems. The transformation of abandoned spaces into local hubs attracting new and innovative activities and events promotes a socioeconomic renaissance in urban communities, by stimulating adaptation to change, enhancing local resilience and...
Land degradation is a multifaceted phenomenon. In many mountainous and hilly areas that are marginal in terms of their economic and social sustainability, degradation is closely linked to population decline through ageing and outmigration, and to the abandonment of land, leading to a loss of community resilience. These processes acting together can...
The sustainability of food systems is a central issue in academic and political debate at a national and global level. Involving the various actors in food systems through a multi-actor platform approach is increasingly recognized as a way to promote sustainability because it is a strategy capable of ensuring resilience and an effective mechanism t...
There is motivation in many rural areas and communities to resolve the issues slowing achievement of a sustainable future, and to embrace the concept of the circular economy for agro-food systems. Increased consumption of resources is not an option and therefore best use must be made of capital, incorporating the "reduce, re-use, recycle" mantra. R...
In Mediterranean forests and rangelands, the supply of important ecosystem services can decrease or cease as a consequence of disturbances and climatic oscillations. Land managers can sometimes prevent or mitigate the negative effects of disturbances through appropriate land management choices. In this study, we assess the contribution of land mana...
Adoption of soil conservation practices is promoted by increased engagement between researchers and stakeholders. By reporting a case study from southern Italy where farmers have been involved in research projects dealing with soil conservation over several years, we demonstrated that the rate of adoption of conservative technologies is positively...
Community resilience is central to reshaping the role and functions of rural areas; and development has increasingly come about via the capacity of communities to be resilient in the face of challenges. When policies designed and adopted in rural areas are place-based; these policies should rely on resilient actors; belonging to resilient communiti...
The chapter reports and discusses a case study on an economic and scientific partnership which has developed a successful innovation, a cheese produced with vegetable (artichoke) rennet, using measure 124 of Campania region's Rural Development Plan, in a sector which is currently in crisis. The case study shows how the initiative's key to success i...
Based on evidence collected in 22 village communities from nine study sites situated in Spain, Italy, Greece, Morocco and China, this study analyses the complex interlinkages between social memory, community resilience and land degradation. Social memory is seen as an important explanation regarding the ability of a local community to manage and co...
The Transition Mayfield (UK) group ran a Local Food project to raise awareness in the local community about the importance of developing local food production and consumption networks; strengthening the local economy and fostering collaboration and skill sharing. The discussion reveals number of factors that were not addressed: growers can lack the...
Social innovation assigns importance to the social and relational aspect of the community development linking it to social interactions and cooperation. Collective actions are crucial not only to promote new solutions to the problems generated by the globalization and the financial crisis in rural areas, but also in supporting community resilience....
The paper reports the experience of a participatory process for the definition of a Local Action Group (LAG) rural development strategy in the southern Italian region of Campania, carried out under the RDP 2014-2020. A number of rural labs for resilient communities were organised involving key actors from agri-food chains, the rural tourism sector,...
The role of tourism in rural areas is pivotal for the integration and valorization of territorial resources and it is strengthened by the capacity to promote local community participation in processes of development. The paper addresses the issue by presenting and discussing a case study of a rural area of southern Italy where a territorial network...
Global demand for water resources is increasing at a staggering rate, indeed in just the last decades the rate of demand for water has doubled that of population growth. Agriculture remains the largest global consumer of water resources and accounts for around 70% of all global freshwater withdrawals, the majority of which is used for irrigation. C...
New definitions characterize our era; new media, found in the center-stage of all sectors in contemporary life style, and sustainable development, aiming to describe development that incorporates except of the economic, the environmental and the social perspective at the same time. Given the various sustainability sectors, the sector of sustainable...
Changes in agriculture, including simultaneous intensification and abandonment, have significantly shaped the evolution of rural areas. The assessment of resilience in agricultural systems could provide insights into the ability of many rural areas to survive and regain competitiveness following disturbances. The aim of this study is to use the ada...
This study analyses social, economic and political “lock-ins” for understanding
community resilience and land degradation. The study focuses on lock-ins from
within communities, using four case study communities in Italy affected by land
degradation. The analysis highlights the complex interrelationships between various
lock-ins, and suggests that...
Rural areas are characterized by highly heterogeneous landscapes; rural mosaics, which are home to varying intensities of land-use and processes of deactivation and abandonment. The study discussed in this paper proposes a method for the integrated analysis of these rural areas which combines the analysis of land cover dynamics, using GIS, with an...
Diversity has been extensively studied in ecological systems and its relationship with resilience has been well recognized. In social and ecological systems, in fact, diversity is considered key to determining resilience where resilience is defined as system’s capacity to learn and adapt in the face of internal or external perturbations. However, a...
Until around 1995 it was challenging to make the scientific results of research projects publicly available except through presentations at meetings or conferences, or as papers in academic journals. Then it began to be clear that the Internet could become the main medium to publish and share new information with a much wider audience. The DESIRE P...
In the last twenty years the advent of the internet has made it much
easier to share the results of scientific research with a wider range of
audiences. Where once there were only scientific journals and books, it
is now possible to deliver messages and dissemination products
instantly, by email or other media, to huge circulation lists; thereby
al...
It is largely recognised that the Mediterranean and its landscape symbolises a cultural heritage for the world as a whole.
It represents the place where different countries with different languages and cultures converge. Today all this culture and
history seems clearly threatened by extensive desertification phenomena. This paper focuses on the rol...
Il processo di costruzione del Partenariato Euro-Mediterraneo (PEM), avviato nel 1995 con la Conferenza di Barcellona, che ha aperto una nuova fase nelle relazioni tra Europa e paesi dell'Est e del Sud del Mediterraneo, ha sicuramente realizzato significativi progressi sul piano dell'integrazione economico-commerciale, ma, al tempo stesso, ha disat...
During recent years, water-related anomalies (drought, water scarcity, flood) have become a common occurrence in most areas and especially in the arid and semiarid regions of Mediterranean areas. There are evidences of increasing inter-annual variability, as increasing deviation from the long-term mean. This could be the main reason for the increas...
This paper builds on Part I, where three European and Mediterranean scenarios were introduced. Theses scenarios can be typified as qualitative, integrated narrative storylines that describe three possible directions of future change until 2030. The main purpose of the paper is to summarise the methods and results of a series of stakeholder workshop...
La Desertificazione, negli ultimi decenni, si è imposta all'attenzione pubblica mondiale come una delle problematiche ambientali più significative. Se alla fine degli anni '70 la desertificazione era intesa come "riduzione o distruzione del potenziale biologico del terreno che può condurre a condizioni desertiche" (UNEP, 1977), oggi il concetto com...
ManPrAs is a tool for Agricultural Management Practices Assessment set up within DESERTLINKS project. The objective is to suggest a method, based on the indicators list in DIS4ME, to assess the sustainability of agricultural practices through its soil conservation index (SCI) and economic results (Gross Margin-GM), and to simulate the impact on soi...
As a contribution to understanding the interaction between the factors which influence desertification, a decision support system (DSS) is developed for the 1700-km2 Agri basin in southern Italy. This integrates the SHETRAN physically based hydrological and sediment yield model, a simple socio-economic model (in which farmers select those crops whi...
