Abstract
Even though urban land-use change simulations provide useful information for decision makers, planning is generally weakly integrated into land-change modelling. However, the increasingly digitally available zoning data from statutory planning offers new opportunities. This study aims to reveal the potential effectiveness of statutory planning in terms of sustainable urban development by integrating zoning regulations in a multi-scenario simulation. Specifically, the gross floor area that can be built per parcel, as defined in the zoning plan, supports the allocation of varying degrees of urban densities. Using the CLUmondo modelling framework that couples cellular automata and multivariate logistic regression, we simulated urban growth in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Zaragoza Spanish Functional Urban Areas from 2012 to 2030 in four scenarios. The scenarios reflect the degree of planning intervention, ranging from high intervention to unrestricted development, while consider Spanish legislation and urban agenda 2030 sustainability goals. Simulations shows that by shifting growth to zones with urbanization projects almost 4200 ha of grassland and cropland could be saved from overbuilding, and 3800 ha by shifting it to zones without urbanization project. The simulation results provide critical information to support decision-makers and planners in revising plans and designing new plans to achieve sustainable urban development.
Highlights
Urbanization has increased all over the world generating intense changes in the spatial distribution, quantity and type of land-uses (Xu, Yang, Dong, Liu, & Qiu, 2016)
This study reveals the importance of integrating urban planning in urban land-change simulations to provide insights into future scenarios of Spanish urban area development
An innovative aspect of the study is the integration of digital plan data not as hard restrictions, but considering the heterogeneity within zoning areas along three intensity classes. This softer integration of planning improved simulated real-patterns by adding the urban intensities based on maximum gross floor area defined in zoning plans
Summary
Urbanization has increased all over the world generating intense changes in the spatial distribution, quantity and type of land-uses (Xu, Yang, Dong, Liu, & Qiu, 2016). Spain suffered one of the largest real estate bubbles in all of Europe before the last economic crisis in 2008. Legislative changes that allowed Spanish municipalities to obtain a significant increase in their income by creating new buildable land (Varela-Candamio, Rubiera Morollon, & Sedrakyan, 2019), unsustain able investment capital, and sometimes the gamble of the construction sector, generated urbanization pressures. These factors lead to an un precedented expansion of urban land and sprawl (Díaz-Pacheco & García-Palomares, 2014). The definition of strict planning policies and their implementation are required to prevent future land degradation, keeping urban compactness in Spanish urban areas
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
