Papers by Federico Martellozzo
International audienceDernièrement, la consommation de ressources naturelles par l’homme a attein... more International audienceDernièrement, la consommation de ressources naturelles par l’homme a atteint des niveaux inimaginables. Par conséquent, la préoccupation pour l’épuisement accéléré de l’environnement a également augmenté et est devenue un sujet d’intérêt croissant pour les médias comme pour la communauté scientifique. Ce phénomène est souvent illustré comme le conflit entre la nécessité d’accroître les ressources naturelles disponibles pour soutenir le développement d’une part; et d’autre part, la réduction de la pression humaine sur l’environnement, facteur fonctionnel à une augmentation de la capacité de résilience. Très souvent, la solution pour résoudre ce conflit est basée sur la réalisation d’objectifs fixés a priorien termes de performance, en particulier dans le secteur de l’énergie. Dans cette étude, toutefois, un cadre opérationnel original a été mis en place, fondé non pas sur l’observation de la consommation réelle mais plutôt sur une estimation de la quantité minim...
Please cite this article in press as: F. Amato, et al., Preserving cultural heritage by supportin... more Please cite this article in press as: F. Amato, et al., Preserving cultural heritage by supporting landscape planning with quantitative predictions of soil consumption, Journal of Cultural Heritage (2016), http://dx. a b s t r a c t Landscape preservation in Italy is a major issue in national cultural heritage conservation policies. Urban settlements growth is among the most threatening factors for the correct landscape preservation. Such phenomenon may result in corrupting the correct landscape-system functioning, particularly when the development occurs without precise planning prescriptions. Land-use/cover evolution dynamic is a subject widely and thoroughly investigated, especially concerning consumption of natural and other lands due to anthropogenic activities. This paper focuses on a region in southern Italy, where soil consumption is known to represent a urging matter of concern. However, although the negative impacts of soil consumption are well known, to our knowledge there are no case studies presenting a precise quantitative assessment of the intensity of such phenomenon for the region of interest. Furthermore, this study aims at forecasting the development of urban settlements through the application of the cellular automata model SLEUTH; the case study concerns the Municipality of Altamura (Apulia region, Italy). Results highlight how current landscape preservation instruments alone cannot ensure a reduction in soil consumption phenomenon and how urban areas expansion is incompatible with a correct landscape conservation in the study area.
Global environmental-change is evident, and undeniably it is mostly induced by anthropogenic acti... more Global environmental-change is evident, and undeniably it is mostly induced by anthropogenic activities. Several programs fuelling climate-change mitigation were lately implemented; all fostering specific and ambitious targets. Although some improvements were regionally observed, regrettably the expected results are in many cases still out of reach. Contemporaneously, societies experienced a proliferation of grassroots initiatives calling for individual participation in fostering societal sustainable transition. Scholars advocate that bottom-up activities may outperform top-down policies in reaching sustainability; however, a methodological framework to intelligibly assess CBIs' impact on socio-ecological systems is still unexplored. This paper aims at: illustrating main caveats in assessing CBIs' environmental impacts, proposing a general methodological framework, presenting results from a pan-European research
Global environmental-change is evident, and undeniably it is mostly induced by anthropogenic acti... more Global environmental-change is evident, and undeniably it is mostly induced by anthropogenic activities. Several programs fuelling climate-change mitigation were lately implemented; all fostering specific and ambitious targets. Although some improvements were regionally observed, regrettably the expected results are in many cases still out of reach. Contemporaneously, societies experienced a proliferation of grass-roots initiatives calling for individual participation in fostering societal sustainable transition. Scholars advocate that bottom-up activities may outperform top-down policies in reaching sustainability; however, a methodological framework to intelligibly assess CBIs' impact on socio-ecological systems is still unexplored. This paper aims at: illustrating main caveats in assessing CBIs' environmental impacts, proposing a general methodological framework, presenting results from a pan-European research
Among the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals by United Nations, “Affordable and Cle... more Among the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals by United Nations, “Affordable and Clean Energy” aims at ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. However, in Europe there is not a precise understanding of the unleashed potential that could be achieved through the exploitation of solar and wind resources. This study presents an application to retrieve spatial explicit estimates of Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) through the use of data from geo-stationary satellites. The energetic demand of large metropolitan areas in Europe is then retrieved and compared with the potential production of energy for domestic use through solar panels. Results of this comparison are presented based on the assumption that only the 1 % of the built up area could be covered with solar panels, and hence devoted to energy production. Outcomes suggest that even such a little coverage, if spread systematically over urban areas can in most of the cases satisfy urban population domestic needs.
One of the most critical challenges modern society is facing deals with the uncontrolled spread o... more One of the most critical challenges modern society is facing deals with the uncontrolled spread of urban environment among surrounding natural environments, with agricultural and wild landscapes being the ones that suffer the effects of urban and suburban pressure . This phenomenon known as urban sprawl is controversial because even if its conceptually well known there is not a universally shared definition of causes and consequences . The main aim of this research is to develop a methodology to successfully investigate the evolution trend of sprawl on a specific case study and to get empirical evidences of the tight correlation between urban growth and loss of agricultural and natural lands over time. The research is developed in two phases: the diachronic analysis of landcover changes occurred in the recent past through the use of satellite imagery; the forecast of possible landcover scenarios through the use of cellular automata model. Combining the results obtained in the two phases will build up a longer time span on which investigate the phenomena previously described.
LA DESERTIFICAZIONE: UN PROBLEMA AMBIENTALE E SOCIALE. L'ESEMPIO DEL LAGO TCHAD. Il termine deser... more LA DESERTIFICAZIONE: UN PROBLEMA AMBIENTALE E SOCIALE. L'ESEMPIO DEL LAGO TCHAD. Il termine desertificazione rimanda subito all'immagine del deserto, tuttavia i deserti sono ecosistemi naturali che si espandono o retrocedono nel corso del tempo. Nel presente articolo si fa riferimento in generale alle molteplici definizioni usate per descrivere la desertificazione, per soffermarsi poi sui vincoli metodologici che permettono di studiare il fenomeno nel suo complesso; in conclusione viene dato esempio di una delle più grandi catastrofi per l'Africa centrale, ovvero la progressiva scomparsa di un bacino idrografico, il cui apporto d'acqua è indispensabile per quattro paesi DESERTIFICATION: A SOCIAL AND ENVIROMENTAL PROBLEM. THE CASE OF STUDY OF LAKE CHAD. The word desertification reminds immediately the portrait of a desert, althoug deserts are natural ecosystems which grow and and pull back during centuries. In this arcticle, for first, are shown several definitions used to describe the desertification, then are explained some methodological ties and knowledge fundamentals to observe the phenomenon and its backgorund; finally is given an practical example of one of the most harmful problems for central Africa, the gradual disappearence of the idorgraphic basin of lake Chad, that is responsible of most of the water of four wide Countries, in one of the most dry region of the World. Federico Martellozzo
Rapid urban expansion is a major contributor to environmental change in many parts of the world. ... more Rapid urban expansion is a major contributor to environmental change in many parts of the world. This study investigated land cover changes that occurred between 1988 and 2010 in the Calgary–Edmonton corridor in Alberta, a region that has undergone considerable recent urban expansion. We used satellite imagery to develop land cover maps for four different snapshots in time between 1988 and 2010 and used these maps to investigate two principal questions related to urban expansion: (1) How did urban expansion affect other land cover types? and (2) How did urban expansion affect the availability of high-quality agricultural land in the region? Our results show that 60 % of new urban and peri-urban growth between 1988 and 2010 occurred on agricultural land. Nevertheless, total agricultural land increased in the region because of the greater clearing of natural vegetation for agriculture away from the urban core. Urban expansion predominantly occurred on soils that were highly suitable for farming, while new agricultural expansion occurred on soils of poorer quality. As a result, the average soil quality of land used for agriculture has declined in the Calgary–Edmonton corridor, confirming other studies of the food security implications of urbanization.
Urban agriculture (UA) has been drawing a lot of attention recently for several reasons: the majo... more Urban agriculture (UA) has been drawing a lot of attention recently for several reasons: the majority of the world population has shifted from living in rural to urban areas; the environmental impact of agriculture is a matter of rising concern; and food insecurity, especially the accessibility of food, remains a major challenge. UA has often been proposed as a solution to some of these issues, for example by producing food in places where population density is highest, reducing transportation costs, connecting people directly to food systems and using urban areas efficiently. However, to date no study has examined how much food could actually be produced in urban areas at the global scale. Here we use a simple approach, based on different global-scale datasets, to assess to what extent UA is constrained by the existing amount of urban space. Our results suggest that UA would require roughly one third of the total global urban area to meet the global vegetable consumption of urban dwellers. This estimate does not consider how much urban area may actually be suitable and available for UA, which likely varies substantially around the world and according to the type of UA performed. Further, this global average value masks variations of more than two orders of magnitude among individual countries. The variations in the space required across countries derive mostly from variations in urban population density, and much less from variations in yields or per capita consumption. Overall, the space required is regrettably the highest where UA is most needed, i.e., in more food insecure countries. We also show that smaller urban clusters (i.e., <100 km 2 each) together represent about two thirds of the global urban extent; thus UA discourse and policies should not focus on large cities exclusively, but should also target smaller urban areas that offer the greatest potential in terms of physical space.
The monitoring of land cover transitions related to urban development over time is usually to fin... more The monitoring of land cover transitions related to urban development over time is usually to find out the amount and location of land use change for planning purposes. The ability to anticipate a trend in urban sprawl behaviour for a specific region would give planners a useful tool to understand sprawl's long-term impact on a region, or even to take steps to prevent or retard it. The uncontrolled spread of cities into their surrounding rural and natural land is an issue of high interest in modern society and has been widely investigated; however, the so called urban "sprawl", in spite of being well known, remains controversial, hence among scholars there are no universal definitions for causes and variables related to it nor about its dynamics . Although various studies have been dedicated to the measurement and monitoring of urban growth (Torrens 2008), they have limitations in providing generalizations of the characteristics of urban sprawl (Heikkila and Hu 2006)). To efficiently measure sprawl we must rely on metrics that consider it a matter of degree . For instance, scattered development and polycentric/multinucleated urban development are very similar; hence the distinction between these two different trends of growth is elusive and leads us to consider sprawl as a matter of resolution and scale as well (Batty 2008). In order to do so we recently developed a simple and useful metric that can detect the degree of dispersal of urban growth trend over time; this metric is simply obtained by merging together the information conveyed by the number of clusters and the average cluster's size of the landcover type under investigation. Furthermore in this study we want to investigate the correlation, as well as the influence of urban growth patterns on the surrounding landscape, in order to do so we applied the same metric to the whole landscape to detect the degree of dispersal, or level of fragmentation, of the whole ecosystem surrounding urbanized areas. A comparison of several cities in diverse geographic regions offered intriguing findings. In general, urban sprawl is associated with a higher level of fragmentation of the whole ecosystem, conversely when the urban pattern is more aggregated also the surrounding landscape is more compact.
Growing food in urban areas could solve a multitude of social and environmental problems. These p... more Growing food in urban areas could solve a multitude of social and environmental problems. These potential benefits have resulted in an increased demand for urban agriculture (UA), though quantitative data is lacking on the feasibility of conversion to large-scale practices. This study uses multiple land use scenarios to determine different spaces that could be allocated to vegetable production in Montréal, including residential gardens, industrial rooftops and vacant space. Considering a range of both soil-bound and hydroponic yields, the ability of these scenarios to render Montréal self-sufficient in terms of vegetable production is assessed. The results show that the island could easily satisfy its vegetable demand if hydroponics are implemented on industrial rooftops, though these operations are generally costly. Using only vacant space, however, also has the potential to meet the city's demand and requires lower operating costs. A performance index was developed to evaluate the potential of each borough to meet its own vegetable demand while still maintaining an elevated population density. Most boroughs outside of the OPEN ACCESS ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2014, 3 1102 downtown core are able to satisfy their vegetable demand efficiently due to their land use composition, though results vary greatly depending on the farming methods used, indicating the importance of farm management.
Among the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals by United Nations, " Affordable and Cle... more Among the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals by United Nations, " Affordable and Clean Energy " aims at ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. However, in Europe there is not a precise understanding of the unleashed potential that could be achieved through the exploitation of solar and wind resources. This study presents an application to retrieve spatial explicit estimates of Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) through the use of data from geostationary satellites. The energetic demand of large metropolitan areas in Europe is then retrieved and compared with the potential production of energy for domestic use through solar panels. Results of this comparison are presented based on the assumption that only the 1 % of the built up area could be covered with solar panels, and hence devoted to energy production. Outcomes suggest that even such a little coverage , if spread systematically over urban areas can in most of the cases satisfy urban population domestic needs.
The negative impacts of land take on natural components and economic resources affect planning ch... more The negative impacts of land take on natural components and economic resources affect planning choices and territorial policies. The importance of land take monitoring, in Italy, has been only recently considered, but despite this awareness, in the great part of the country, effective monitoring and containment measures have not been started, yet. This research proposes a methodology to map and monitor land use changes. To this end, a time series from 1985–2010, based on the multi-temporal Landsat data Thematic Mapper (TM), has been analyzed in the Vulture Alto-Bradano area, a mountain zone of the Basilicata region (Southern Italy). Results confirm a double potentiality of using these data: on the one hand, the use of multi-temporal Landsat data allows going very back in time, producing accurate datasets that provide a phenomenon trend over time; on the other hand, these data can be considered a first experience of open data in the field of spatial information. The proposed methodology provides agencies, local authorities and practitioners with a valuable tool to implement monitoring actions. This represents the first step to pursue territorial governance methods based on sustainability, limiting the land take.
For more than a decade, the European Union recognizes soil as a common good and considers it as a... more For more than a decade, the European Union recognizes soil as a common good and considers it as a finite resource of inestimable value. The European Union defines it as the " upper layer of earth's crust, formed by mineral particles, organic matter, water, air and living organisms ". Despite such definitions, usually, planning choices do not take into account the need to reduce soil consumption to build up resilience. This paper presents the controversial case of Agri Valley (Basilicata, Southern Italy); on the one hand, this region is characterized by the presence of extremely valuable land, because of the exceptional degree of soil fertility; on the other hand, Valdagri is also known to have one of the largest oilfields of Europe. An application built around the SLEUTH model was developed in order to produce a simulation and an estimate of the extent to which urban areas may grow in the near future. Results confirm that urban policies implemented so far by local governments—which aimed almost exclusively to favor industrial development—irreversibly threaten the integrity of the natural values of the valley.
Landuse/cover evolution dynamic is a subject widely and thoroughly investigated, especially conce... more Landuse/cover evolution dynamic is a subject widely and thoroughly investigated, especially concerning consumption of natural and other lands, due to anthropogenic activities. This paper focuses on a region in southern Italy, where soil consumption is known to represent a urging matter of concern. However, although negative impacts of soil consumption are well known, to our knowledge there are no case studies presenting a precise quantitative measurement of the intensity of such phenomenon for the region of interest. This study aims at forecasting the development of urban settlements through the application of the cellular automata model SLEUTH; the first region to be investigated has been the Municipality of Altamura (Apulia region, Italy). This area has been used as a pilot case study to explore many difficulties and advantages in applying such a methodology to the whole southern Italian region. The final goal was to frame and populate an atlas of soil consumption in southern Italy, which intends to offer useful support to sustainable planning and policies.
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Papers by Federico Martellozzo