Population-Based Simulation of Urban Growth: The Italian Case Study

Claudia Cosentino,Beniamino Murgante,Federico Amato

doi:10.3390/su10124838

Claudia Cosentino, Beniamino Murgante + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124838

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Journal: Sustainability	Publication Date: Dec 18, 2018
Citations: 16	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Basilicata, University of Lausanne

Abstract

Land take is one of the most studied phenomena in land use science. The increased attention to the issue of urban growth from both scientists and decision makers is justified by the dramatic negative effects on land use caused by anthropogenic activities. Within this context, researchers have developed and explored several models to forecast land use changes, some of which establish excellent scenario-based predictions of urban growth. However, there is still a lack of operative and user-friendly tools to be integrated into standard urban planning procedures. This paper explores the features of the recently published model FUTure Urban-Regional Environment Simulation integrated into the GRASSGIS environment, which generates urban growth simulation based on a plethora of driving variables. Specifically, the model was applied to the case study of urbanization in the Italian national territory. Hence, the aim of this work is to analyze the importance of population dynamics within the process of urban growth. A simulation of urban growth up to the year 2035 was performed. Results show that, despite the importance given to demographic aspects when defining urban policies over the last several decades, additional factors need to be considered during planning processes to overcome the housing issues currently experienced in Italy.

Highlights

One of the main purposes of urban and regional planning is the development of proper tools to support the scientific debate related to the overexploitation of natural resources, such as soil and natural lands, by humankind [1,2]
By using a backwards elimination stepwise analysis [65,66], only significant and uncorrelated predictors have been included in the final model, i.e., the one resulting in a lower Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)
This paper presents the FUTure Urban-Regional Environment Simulation (FUTURES) model as a powerful cellular automata tool for estimating urban growth for future scenarios

Summary

Introduction

One of the main purposes of urban and regional planning is the development of proper tools to support the scientific debate related to the overexploitation of natural resources, such as soil and natural lands, by humankind [1,2]. Countries are experiencing significant internal migration fluxes, resulting in a high demand for housing in major urban areas. These patterns are recognizable in both developed and developing countries [11]. While intense human-related land use is threatening most of the primary functions of soils (such as their capacity to host biological life, absorb water, and stock carbon) and using from one-third to one-half of the global ecosystem production, the tremendous growth in urban population over the last century is generating an even greater dependence on the so-called ecosystem services, especially by those connected to agricultural production [12]

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