Integrated Assessment of the Anthropic Pressure Level on Natural Water Bodies: The Case Study of the Noce River (Basilicata, Italy)

Fragmentation is a phenomenon that involves the transformation of large patches of natural habitats into smaller ones (fragments) that tend to be isolated from the originals. In this case, the degree of environmental fragmentation of the Noce River in the Basilicata region (Italy) will be analysed. Following the installation of hydroelectric plants, the river has undergone such alterations that it has been classified as a Heavily Modified Water Body (HMWB). Environmental fragmentation is caused not only by soil sealing, which causes the loss and subsequent fragmentation of natural patches, but can also be caused by major changes in natural patches. In the case of a territory crossed by a watercourse, these patches may be subject to changes in the natural course of the river or in the vegetation present close to it. The aim of this work is to calculate, through GIS applications, the level of fragmentation of the adjacent area surrounding the water body along which there are several hydroelectric plants. Through a change detection in 2006, 2013 and 2018, metric and biodiversity indicators will be calculated to define the level of anthropic pressure of the water body. The results reveal that the variation of the calculated indices, both for landscape metrics and diversity indices, concerned “natural” land use classes, whose variation caused fragmentation of natural patches by changing the shape of the water body

Border Tourism Development Strategies in Kaleybar Compared to Regional Rivals

A richness of tourism attractions has given Iran global importance within its border. Iran is a country with a huge cultural heritage, and is rich in historical monuments from different eras. The variety and diversity of cultural symbols allows tourists traveling in Iran to experience the cultures of other countries. The border areas of the country are therefore becoming increasingly attractive for tourism due to their distinctive social, economic and political position and the presence of many historical and natural attractions. This study analyzes border tourism in Kaleybar city using a descriptive-analytical method with a Meta-SWOT model (new strategic planning tool), with the final goal of economic development and the improvement of the welfare of the people. Through a literature review, the current and future capabilities and challenges of the county of Kaleybar as a border city are examined, and future goals and ways to achieve them have been developed using the opinions of experts and scholars via the Delphi technique. For this purpose, the Meta-SWOT model has been used. Meta-SWOT is based on resource-based theory (RBV). Data collection has been done several times using the opinions of 39 experts. After analyzing the conditions and recognizing and determining the capacities and skills of Kaleybar and its regional rivals, the results of the research show that the most important advantage of Kaleybar city concerns the existence of many attractions of a natural character. A higher strategic suitability is also ensured by the presence of parks and coastal sidewalks that attract important internal and foreign investments in this region. On the other hand, the component of political and governmental factors in attracting foreign tourists has the highest effective power, and the component of attention to integrated management in the field of tourism in the country has the highest degree of urgency

Assessing the effectiveness of public investments in cultural built heritage: the case of the umbertine forts system in italy

The paper deals with the topic of the allocation of resources and investment strategies in cultural built heritage. The valorization of cultural assets is often guaranteed by the intervention of public funding. The need to allocate these funds efficiently and effectively, together with the transparency duties to which public administrations are subject, necessitates a careful measurement of the economic, cultural, environmental and social effects. Accordingly, the paper outlines the starting framework of a study on the ex-post evaluation of the effectiveness of public intervention towards the restoration and valorization of three forts in the Umbertine Forts System, located in the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, southern Italy

Differences and Incongruences in Land Take Monitoring Techniques

The new European standards and directives on land take raise critical issues concerning the techniques for measuring and monitoring the phenomenon in order to achieve the targets fixed. The directive "No Net Land Take by 2050", makes it necessary to homogenize both the terminology used to define land take or consumption and the standardization of a computational methodology for its quantification. In order to achieve the goals, set by the EU regarding land take and soil sealing, it is necessary for EU member states to produce comparable data. It is essential to use the same data sources with standardized coding and to share the same meaning of the concept of land take. Therefore, with the aim of highlighting the criticalities and inconsistencies arising from the use of different techniques and datasets for monitoring land take, we will analyze, first, different definitions of land take derived from institutional sources including the European Environment Agency (EEA); then to each definition we will associate the corresponding land cover classes derived from the Copernicus Corine Land Cover (CLC) project. For the quantitative analysis we will use continuous and discontinuous datasets (raster and vectors) whose results will be compared with the data of the annual report on land take of the Superior Institute for environmental protection and research of Italy (ISPRA 2020)

The social cost of urban sprinkling

Low-density dispersed urban development, known as "sprawl" or "sprinkling", is an alternative configuration that best expresses the structure of the Italian urban system and is taking on increasingly significant dimensions. This phenomenon has increased in recent decades due to a weakening of the urban agglomeration force that had characterized the first half of the last century. Partial abandonment of agricultural activities and socio-economic changes led to the progressive urbanization of rural areas and the birth of widespread cities. This work discusses the externalities generated by sprawl, focusing on the tangible costs that this urban development model unloads on the people. In particular, the territory of the Basilicata Region is analyzed. Based on the data of some municipalities in the region, a relationship between the marginal costs relating to the greater linear infrastructure that sprinkling requires and an index already described in the literature to provide a quantitative measure of this phenomenon was built and verified with a regression model

Ghost planning: The inefficiency of energy sector policies in a low population density region

The growing interest in energy sector policies has led to a widespread and dispersed installation of energy production plants in Italy. This occurred due to a “ghost planning system” that operates outside the urban planning policies. Focusing on the evidence of landscape changes due to the installation of energy infrastructures in the Basilicata region we want to measure the impacts of the installation of hydrocarbon wells and renewable energy plants through a SPrinkling IndeX