WSEAS Transactions on Environment and Development
Print ISSN: 1790-5079, E-ISSN: 2224-3496
Volume 9, 2013
Cropland vs Forests: Landscape Composition and Land-use Changes in Peri-Urban Rome (1949-2008)
Authors: ,
Abstract: This paper investigates long-term land-use changes in peri-urban Rome (1500 km2) over sixty years (1949-2008) as a contribution to the study of landscape form and composition. The investigated region is a paradigmatic example of an originally compact urban landscape progressively transformed into a more dispersed urban form, with high-quality agricultural areas and pristine forests (including the Castelporziano presidential estate) still preserved along the urban fringe but endangered by forest fires, urban sprawl and increasing human pressure. Changes in the distribution of nine land-use categories have been determined and diachronic relationships among them deeply explored in the investigated area. Results illustrated in this study indicate a substantial similarity in the processes of land-use changes observed in the peri-urban area of Rome during the last sixty years. The main trends include (i) agricultural land abandonment (arable land, pasture and, partly, vineyards) followed by urbanization (either in compact and dispersed forms of settlements), (ii) deforestation in the first time period followed by woodland re-colonization and overall increase during the most recent years and, finally (iii) crop intensification and rural landscape simplification. Conversion probability to impervious land was found high only for defined cover classes over the whole period, including arable lands, pastures, annual cultivations, and vineyards. Notably, these classes were found strictly associated to the urban-rural interface in the Mediterranean landscape. The implications of land-use changes for policies aimed at protecting the fragile woodland ecosystem around large Mediterranean are discussed in the light of planning strategies for the containment of urban diffusion.