[go: up one dir, main page]
Skip to main content

Advertisement

Springer Nature Link
Log in

Unraveling the ‘stable’ landscape: a multi-factor analysis of unchanged agricultural and forest land (1987–2007) in a rapidly-expanding urban region

  • Published:
Urban Ecosystems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The present study proposes an original framework to investigate landscape transformations in economically-dynamic regions based on the spatial analysis of unchanged land-use patches over a given time-period. A multi-factor analysis of the stable patches classified at nine land-use classes during 1987–2007 in Attica, Greece, was developed using landscape metrics (number of patches, class area, mean shape index, mean patch size and its coefficient of variation) and territorial variables (elevation, distance from the central city). A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was carried out to explore the specific relations existing between landscape metrics and territorial variables for each use of land. Areas maintaining the same use of land during 1987–2007 covered 73 % of the total investigated region. Artificial surfaces/bare land and agricultural areas are the most persistent uses of land over time (respectively 95 % and 81 %) while the less persistent uses are shrubland (49 %) and coniferous forests (58 %). On average, stable patches are significantly bigger and more distant from the central city than the patches observed at the beginning of the study period. Deviations to this general pattern have been observed for specific land-use classes. The PCA identified patch area and shape as independent descriptors of the stable landscape, being correlated respectively with the distance from the inner city and elevation. Multivariate analysis proved to be a relevant tool for evaluating landscape transformations in rapidly evolving urban regions. Stable agro-forest landscapes are a promising target for environmental conservation policies.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alphan H (2003) Land use change and urbanisation of Adana, Turkey. Land Degrad Dev 14:575–586

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Antrop M (2004) Landscape change and the urbanization process in Europe. Landsc Urban Plan 67:9–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Botequilha Leitato A, Ahern J (2002) Applying landscape ecological concepts and metrics in sustainable landscape planning. Landsc Urban Plan 59(2):65–93

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Briassoulis H (2001) Policy-oriented integrated analysis of land use change: an analysis of data needs. Environ Manag 27:1–11

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bruegmann R (2005) Sprawl: a compact history. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 301 pp

  • Cakir G, Un C, Baskent EZ, Kose S, Sivrikaya F, Keles S (2008) Evaluating urbanization, fragmentation and land use/cover change pattern in Istanbul city, Turkey from 1971 to 2002. Land Degrad Dev 19:663–675

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Catalàn B, Sauri D, Serra P (2008) Urban sprawl in the Mediterranean? Patterns of growth and change in the Barcelona metropolitan region 1993–2000. Landsc Urban Plan 85:174–184

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chorianopoulos I, Pagonis T, Koukoulas S, Drymoniti S (2010) Planning, competitiveness and sprawl in the Mediterranean city: the case of Athens. Cities 27:249–259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Christopoulou O, Polyzos S, Minetos D (2007) Peri-urban and urban forests in Greece: obstacle or advantage to urban development? J Environ Manag 18:382–395

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins JP, Kinzig A, Grimm NB, Fagan WF, Hope D, Wu J, Borer ET (2000) A new urban ecology. Am Sci 88:416–425

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cook EA (2002) Landscape structure indices for assessing urban ecological networks. Landsc Urban Plan 58(2–4):269–280

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corona P, Ferrara A, La Marca O (1997) Sustainable management of forests for atmospheric CO2 depletion. J Sustain For 5(3–4):81–91. doi:10.1300/J091v05n03_05

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Detsis V, Ntasiopoulou G, Chalkias C, Efthimiou G (2010) Recent insular Mediterranean landscape evolution: a case study on Syros, Greece. Landsc Res 35(3):361–381

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DiBari J (2007) Evaluation of five landscape-level metrics for measuring the effects of urbanization on landscape structure: the case of Tucson, Arizona, USA. Landsc Urban Plan 79:308–313

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Economidou E (1993) The attic landscape throughout the centuries and its humandegradation. Landsc Urban Plan 24:33–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • European Environment Agency (2010) Mapping guide for a European urban atlas. EEA, Copenhagen

    Google Scholar 

  • Fairbanks D, Benn G (2000) Identifying regional landscapes for conservation planning: a case study for KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Landsc Urban Plan 50:237–257

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrara A, Salvati L, Sabbi A, Colantoni A (2014) Soil resources, land cover changes and rural areas: towards a spatial mismatch? Sci Total Environ 478:116–122. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.01.040

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Imre AR, Rocchini D (2009) Explicitly accounting for pixel dimension in calculating classical and fractal landscape shape metrics. Acta Biotheor 57:349–360

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jaeger JAG (2000) Landscape division, splitting index, and effective mesh size: new measures of landscape fragmentation. Landsc Ecol 15:115–130

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jensen MB, Persson B, Guldager S, Reeh U, Nilsson K (2000) Green structure and sustainability-developing a tool for local planning. Landsc Urban Plan 52:117–133

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jomaa I, Auda Y, Abi SB, Hamzé M, Safi S (2008) Landscape spatial dynamics over 38 years under natural and anthropogenic pressures in Mount Lebanon. Landsc Urban Plan 87:67–75

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li H, Wu J (2004) Use and misuse of landscape indices. Landsc Ecol 19:389–399

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luck M, Wu J (2002) A gradient analysis of urban landscape pattern: a case study from the phoenix metropolitan region, Arizona, USA. Landsc Ecol 17:327–339

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marcucci DJ (2000) Landscape history as a planning tool. Landsc Urban Plan 49:67–81

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marull J, Mallarach JM (2005) A GIS methodology for assessing ecological connectivity: application to Barcelona metropolitan area. Landsc Urban Plan 71:243–262

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marull J, Pino J, Tello E, Cordobilla MJ (2009) Social metabolism, landscape change and land-use planning in the Barcelona metropolitan region. Land Use Policy 27:497–510

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moissidis A, Duquenne M-N (1997) Peri-urban rural areas in Greece: the case of Attica. Sociol Rural 37(2):228–239

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nikolakopoulos K, Pavlopoulos K, Chalkias C, Manou D (2005) Monitoring the urban expansion of Athens using remote sensing and GIS techniques in the last 35 years. Proceedings of SPIE, Volume 5983. doi:10.1117/12.626807

  • Nolè A, Collalti A, Magnani F, Duce P, Ferrara A, Mancino M, Marras M, Sirca S, Spano D, Borghetti M (2013) Assessing temporal variation of primary and ecosystem production in two Mediterranean forests using a modified 3-PG model. Ann For Sci 70:729–741. doi:10.1007/s13595-013-0315-7

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pauleit S, Duhme F (2000) Assessing the environmental performance of land cover types for urban planning. Landsc Urban Plan 52:1–20

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salvati L, Ferrara A (2014) Do land cover changes shape sensitivity to forest fires in peri-urban areas? Urban For Urban Green 13(3):571–575. doi:10.1016/j.ufug.2014.03.004

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salvati L, Sabbi A (2011) Exploring long-term land cover changes in an urban region of southern Europe. Int J Sustain Dev World Ecol 18(4):273–282

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salvati L, Sateriano A, Bajocco S (2013) To grow or to sprawl? Evolving land cover relationships in a compact Mediterranean city region. Cities 30:113–121

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salvati L., Ranalli F., Gitas I. 2014a. Landscape fragmentation and the agro-forest ecosystem along the urban gradient: an exploratory study. Int J Sustain Dev World Ecol, in press.

  • Salvati L., Sabbi A., Carlucci M. 2014b. Exploring complex relationships using non-parametric principal components analysis: a case study with land-use data. Int J Ecol Econ Stat, in press.

  • Salvati L., Gitas I., Bajocco S. 2015. Spatial determinants of land-use changes in a urban region (Attica, Greece) between 1987 and 2007. J Land Use Sci, in press.

  • Sarvestani MS, Latif IA, Kanaroglou P (2011) Three decades of urban growth in the city of shiraz, Iran: a remote sensing and geographical information systems application. Cities 28(4):320–329

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Serra P, Pons X, Saurí D (2008) Land-cover and land-use change in a Mediterranean landscape: a spatial analysis of driving forces integrating biophysical and human factors. Appl Geogr 28(3):189–209

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shrestha MK, York AM, Boone CG, Zhang S (2012) Land fragmentation due to rapid urbanization in the phoenix metropolitan area: analyzing the spatiotemporal patterns and drivers. Appl Geogr 32:522–531

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Soliman AM (2004) Regional planning scenarios in South Lebanon: the challenge of rural-urban interactions in the era of liberation and globalization. Habitat International 28:385–408

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Verburg PH, de Nijs TCM, van Eck JR, Visser H, de Jong K (2004) A method to analyse neighbourhood characteristics of land use patterns. Comput Environ Urban Syst 28(6):667–690

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weber C, Petropoulou C, Hirsch J (2005) Urban development in the Athens metropolitan area using remote sensing data with supervised analysis and GIS. Int J Remote Sens 26:785–796

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weng YC (2007) Spatiotemporal changes of landscape pattern in response to urbanization. Landsc Urban Plan 81:341–353

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang X, Lo C (2002) Using satellite imagery to detect land use land cover changes in Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area. Int J Remote Sens 23:1775–1798

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang L, Xian G, Klaver J, Deal B (2003) Urban land-cover change detection through sub-pixel impervious surface mapping using remotely sensed data. Photogramm Eng Remote Sens 69:1003–1010

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang L, Wu J, Zhen Y, Shu J (2004) A GIS-based gradient analysis of urban landscape pattern of Shanghai metropolitan area, China. Landsc Urban Plan 69:1–16

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zipperer WC, Wu J, Pouyat RV, Pickett STA (2000) The application of ecological principles to urban and urbanizing landscapes. Ecol Appl 10:685–688

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scuola di Scienze Agrarie, Forestali, Alimentari ed Ambientali, Università degli Studi della Basilicata, Viale dell’Ateneo Lucano 10, I-85100, Potenza, Italy

    Agostino Ferrara

  2. Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (Ricerca and Economia and Agricultura), via della Navicella 2-4, I-00184, Rome, Italy

    Luca Salvati & Adele Sateriano

  3. Department of Forest Science, Laboratory of Forest Management and Remote Sensing, Faculty of Forestry and Natural Environment, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, P.O. Box 248, 54124, Thessaloniki, GR, Greece

    Luca Salvati & Ioannis Gitas

  4. Department of Social and Economic Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale A. Moro 5, I-00185, Rome, Italy

    Margherita Carlucci

  5. Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-food and Forest systems (DIBAF), Tuscia University of Viterbo, Via S. Camillo de Lellis snc, I-01100, Viterbo, Italy

    Rita Biasi

Authors
  1. Agostino Ferrara
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Luca Salvati
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Adele Sateriano
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Margherita Carlucci
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Ioannis Gitas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Rita Biasi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luca Salvati.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ferrara, A., Salvati, L., Sateriano, A. et al. Unraveling the ‘stable’ landscape: a multi-factor analysis of unchanged agricultural and forest land (1987–2007) in a rapidly-expanding urban region. Urban Ecosyst 19, 835–848 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-015-0509-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-015-0509-x

Keywords