Abstract
Several factors may contribute to on-going challenges for spatial planning and policy in megacities such as Rome, including rapid population shifts, poorly organized areas, and lack of data through which monitoring urban growth and land use change. This research was conducted to examine past and current effects of the urbanization process, occurred over the large Roman urban system, on the basis of multi-source and multi-temporal optical remote sensing (RS) data, collected between 1990 and 2013. These changes were then validated via Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques, in a particular procedure applied to urban land/agricultural transformations. The proposed approach, based on geo-statistical methods, was used to calculate the index of innovative space (AP Index), useful for the monitoring of the urban sprawl phenomenon. Strong evidence of urban expansion over the north-eastern quarter of the city, accompanied by environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity, is provided. Urban infill developments are expected to emerge in the south-eastern areas too, and these might increase urban pressure as well. In conclusion, RS and GIS technologies together with ancillary data can be used to assist decision makers in preparing future plans to find out appropriate solutions to urbanization encroachment.
Highlights
In the 1800’s, only 3% of the world population lived in the cities
The applied methodology is based on the inclusion of information derived from multi-source and multi-temporal satellite imagery into a Geographic Information System (GIS) database [26], for the cartographic update of a fast evolving situation related to the expansion of the Roman large urban area
Urban areas derived from a classification procedure have been processed in density classes and analyzed through the AP index
Summary
In the 1800’s, only 3% of the world population lived in the cities. In the 1950’s, the percentage reached around 30%. The urban growth process is accompanied by the modification or reduction of various portions of the city being part of a pre-existing landscape; fragmentation is the most obvious symptom of a time series that eventually leads to disorganization of an urban area. Roman suburbs are good examples of this urbanization process: they are initially considered as fragmented islands, which are gradually destined to blend into the urban body, without distinction between city centre and periphery. This phenomenon can be verified through comparative studies of the complex system formed by Rome and its surroundings (previously called “the Roman countryside”)
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