Peri-urban Planning Research Articles

Ecosystem service multifunctionality and trade-offs in English Green Belt peri-urban planning

Green Belt policies govern peri-urban landscapes globally by restricting built development. Yet, they often have little consideration for the land within them. This is especially the case in England where ecosystem services are poorly accounted for in Green Belt policy, whilst also being viewed as a development obstacle, with few environmental and social benefits; a situation mirrored in peri-urban landscapes globally. Moreover, there is a significant research gap into Green Belts through the socio-ecological lenses of ecosystem services and multifunctionality, which allows populist discourses to go unchallenged. Using modelling and participatory mapping data this paper addresses this gap by quantifying the ecosystem service supply, trade-offs and multifunctionality of the North-East Green Belt, and the wider planning and policy implications. The results show that contrary to claims, Green Belts in England can and do provide multiple benefits to people when studied through these lenses. However, levels of individual ecosystem services and overall multifunctionality differ spatially within Green Belts resulting in opportunity areas as well as potential losses of ecosystem services from development. Areas of deciduous and coniferous woodland as well as key “green wedges” close to urban populations were found to be multifunctionality “hots-spots”, whereas arable and improved grassland provide notable “cold-spots”. Trade-offs were mostly from provisioning services. We argue that Green Belt policies explicitly and holistically accounting for ecosystem services could catalyse a multifunctional opportunity space for climate, nature and people in peri-urban landscapes. Additionally, our study demonstrates the conceptual merits of ecosystem service multifunctionality for planning.

Developing a Tool for Landscape Sustainability Assessment—Using a New Conceptual Approach in Lebanon

In the absence of a holistic view of landscape sustainability, credible data and consistent information are needed to help decision-making and support adaptive landscape management. This course of events highlights a strong need for a tool (system of standards and controls) that can be used by multiple stakeholders (such as NGOs, public authorities, cooperatives, associations, higher education institutes, etc.) to analyze the state and sustainability of landscapes, predict any impact of new projects on the landscape, and develop urban and peri-urban planning policies. However, while consolidated tools of assessment exist, they exhibit complexity in their references. Existing assessment tools also lack specificity and are primarily limited to qualitative approaches. Although large sets of indicators are available and can be adopted, it is crucial to select a new set of non-conventional indicators that provide a holistic view of the various dimensions of the landscape. This review article aims primarily to discuss relevant models and prerequisites in order to later develop landscape indicators to complement—and in many cases—replace existing agro-ecological indicators. Landscape indicators will serve as a baseline for the proposed tool, which will employ a mixed methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative indicators. Additionally, various environmental and landscape indicators are presented and compared to identify the best reference to landscape sustainability. Various fields of application for indicators-based tools and the scales on which they can be applied are also considered. In particular, Lebanese landscapes exhibit variability in characteristics and possess a unique identity with genuine natural and built landscapes. Only recently has there been an increasing interest in sustainability assessment, particularly in relation to Lebanese Landscapes. Unfortunately, there is a likely gap in the studies, planning, and policies related to these landscapes. A tool that can evaluate, protect, conserve, and propose concrete solutions for these landscapes are needed more than ever.

Peri-urban planning: A landscape perspective

The management of peri-urban development has emerged as a new context of contemporary urban planning. Its dynamic and diverse nature presents major challenges and opportunities for urban sustainability. However, a more integrated framework for peri-urban planning has been progressing slowly. An examination of the epistemology of the landscape concept reveals three salient aspects of landscape relevant to multiple domains of peri-urban planning – the unifying, morphogenetic and socialised. Although landscape research has translated into peri-urban management, its full potential has yet to be realised. Among the three landscape dimensions, morphogenesis is relatively neglected. By foregrounding morphogenesis, the three epistemological orientations of landscape can be rebalanced and reintegrated to form the basis of a new planning framework for more continuous, harmonious and sustainable peri-urban development.

Dynamicity of Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) An analysis from peri-urban and rural neighbourhoods of Durgapur Municipal Corporation (DMC) in India

The availability of better economic possibilities and well-connected transportation networks has attracted people to migrate to peri-urban and rural neighbourhoods, changing the landscape of regions outside the city and fostering the growth of physical infrastructure. Using multi-temporal satellite images, the dynamics of Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) changes, the impact of urban growth on LULC changes, and regional environmental implications were investigated in the peri-urban and rural neighbourhoods of Durgapur Municipal Corporation in India. The study used different case studies to highlight the study area's heterogeneity, as the phenomenon of change is not consistent. Landsat TM and OLI-TIRS satellite images in 1991, 2001, 2011, and 2021 were used to analyze the changes in LULC types. We used the relative deviation (RD), annual change intensity (ACI), uniform intensity (UI) to show the dynamicity of LULC types (agriculture land; built-up land; fallow land; vegetated land; mining area; and water bodies) during 1991–2021. This study also applied the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) to measure environmental sensitivity zones and find out the causes of LULC changes. According to LULC statistics, agriculture land, built-up land, and mining area increased by 51.7, 95.46, and 24.79 ​km2, respectively, feom 1991 to 2021. The results also suggested that built-up land and mining area had the greatest (LST), whereas water bodies and vegetated land showed the lowest LST. Moreover, this study looked at the relationships among LST, spectral indices (Normalized Differenced Built-up Index (NDBI), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI)), and environmental sensitivity. The results showed that all of the spectral indices have the strongest association with LST, indicating that built-up land had a far stronger influence on the LST. The spectral indices indicated that the decreasing trends of vegetated land and water bodies were 4.26 and 0.43 km2/a, respectively, during 1991–2021. In summary, this study can help the policy-makers to predict the increasing rate of temperature and the causes for the temperature increase with the rapid expansion of built-up land, thus making effective peri-urban planning decisions.

Feeding the city: A social practice perspective on planning for agriculture in peri-urban Oosterwold, Almere, the Netherlands

Concerns about sustainable food supply in a city-region context increasingly spark cities’ authorities to consider their peri-urban area as a source of food. However, such an orientation seldom leads to critically assess planning for peri-urban agriculture. Peri-urban planning is generally based on segregating agriculture and housing, hence risking to overlook agriculture’s potential. This paper unpacks a case of peri-urban planning that intends to integrate farming at a considerable scale in peri-urban development, i.e. the case of Oosterwold in Almere, the Netherlands. Key to Oosterwold is residents’ self-organisation and the 51% allocation of the area to agriculture. The case study departs with a literature review to comprehend peri-urban agriculture in the urban regions of Northwest Europe and comparable regions elsewhere, which can be funnelled into three generic typologies of farming: (1) garden, (2) multi-functional and (3) conventional. Subsequently, the Oosterwold planning practices are analysed which uncovers the influential arrival of newcomers in the planning process. These newcomers are the fresh residents of Oosterwold who start practising urban agriculture in the area. They have contributed to an open-ended, iteratively evolving process of spatial planning, in which the interpretation of peri-urban agriculture appeared malleable. As a consequence, peri-urban agriculture in Oosterwold has predominately developed towards (hobby) garden farming. It is concluded that there is a range of options for integrating agriculture in peri-urban planning, but this implies the inclusion of new practitioners in the planning process which will further stretch existing practices and face new challenges.

The progressive and rational occupation of the urban system boundary: entropies in La Azucena, Mexico

This is a study about the experience of dwelling in the boundary of the metropolitan area in Guadalajara, Mexico, a place in which there have been various housing scenarios considered as progressive and rational with isomorphic traits, as it is the case of La Azucena. The aim of the article is to identify the hostile forces that peri-urban residents face and the impact that these anthropic forces may produce in the process of inhabiting those periurban areas. In this context, it was necessary to build an index of occupancy using the statistics application SPSS for obtaining a later georeference using the program ArcMap. Thus, it was obtained the Index of Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin and the sphericity test given by Barlett for these three established measurements: health, education and occupancy. In the conceptual precepts of the systems, there are some complex interactions based on the processes of peri-urban planning.

Geospatial analysis of woodland fire occurrence and recurrence in Italy

This research note aims to exemplify the potential of annual time series of wildfire geodatasets to quantify fire occurrence and recurrence amongst different woodland types at large scale, under an international forestry perspective. The study covers a time series of areas affected by wildfire between 2007 and 2014 in Italy. A GIS operation of geometric intersection was carried out between burned areas geodataset time series and Corine Land Cover. Mediterranean pine forest, high maquis, transitional woodland-shrub and high oro-Mediterranean pine forest are the woodland types most preferred in terms of fire occurrence and recurrence. Large fires and megafires hold a significant share of total burned area. An unexpected finding is the huge impact of fires in wildland-urban-interface areas. The proposed analysis provides spatial information that is central to any approach to fire management at large scale. Research findings provide support that can be used e.g. for advancements in research, prioritization of fire prevention, suppression measures, economic incentive allocation, and urban and peri-urban planning.

Wildfire risk, biodiversity and peri-urban planning in the Mt Lofty Ranges, South Australia

Major fires on the periphery of Australian cities are reframing perceptions of what constitutes effective landscape planning and vegetation management. The emerging governance challenge to simultaneously mitigate wildfire risk and support improved conservation practices is reviewed in the context of pre-colonial and modern cultures within the peri-urban Mediterranean climatic region of South Australia's Mt Lofty Ranges. The analysis suggests that anthropogenic burning of landscape has been a vital historical component of risk management. During the early modern era however, improved capacities to manage wildfire risk led to complacency in light of the hazard, which in turn has led to urbanization that has not sufficiently accounted for the levels of risk. A planning conflict is emerging within the wooded uplands as there is renewed interest in wildfire risk, which is reflected in new state policies providing greater allowances for land owners to clear vegetation around dwellings. Although attempts have been made to constrain urban growth around the city of Adelaide, recent workshops with key environmental management stakeholders suggest that urbanization continues within the Mt Lofty Ranges in areas that are both highly vulnerable to fire and of great importance for biodiversity conservation, such that planning is not reflecting the cultures of risk or biodiversity value. For such risks and values to be taken into account within reflexive systems of governance, the narratives on opportunities for adaptation generated by the people who facilitate vegetation management must be accommodated into deliberations on policy. The identification and planning of particularly vulnerable and valuable spaces within the broader landscape and cultural contexts of risk and value would enable complex, targeted responses to environmental hazards, conservation and development needs in the peri-urban uplands.

Dealing with Sustainability Trade-Offs of the Compact City in Peri-Urban Planning Across European City Regions

The compact city has become a leading concept in the planning of peri-urban areas. The compact city concept is often advocated as “sustainable” because of claims that include lower emissions and conservation of the countryside. The literature shows, however, that there are certain trade-offs in striving for compaction, especially between environmental and social aspects of sustainability. In this article, we describe expressions of the compact city concept in the planning practice of several European urban sample regions, as well as policies and developments that contradict the compact city. We look at examples of positive and negative impacts of the compact city that were observed in the sample regions. Further, we discuss attempts by planners to deal with sustainability trade-offs. Being aware that developments in the peri-urban areas are closely connected to those in the inner city, we compare the sample regions in order to learn how the compact city concept has been used in planning peri-urban areas across different contexts in Europe: in Western, Central and Mediterranean Europe, and with growing, stable or declining populations. We conclude with recommendations with respect to balance in applying the compact city concept.

Inverse governmentality: The paradoxical production of peri-urban planning in Maputo, Mozambique

This article examines urban planning on the outskirts of Maputo, Mozambique, where governance constitutes an ambiguous realm whose imagined opportunities are as enticing as its dangers are frightening. Although state agencies have proven incapable of implementing coherent urban policies, numerous peri-urban areas reflect a remarkable aesthetic regularity. In the article I unfold how it emerged through informal attempts to mimic state-defined urban standards which even civil servants acknowledge exist only as scattered imitations. It is when initiating building projects based on urban standards that the state could have implemented that house-builders create the ordering gaze of power by which they ought to be illuminated. Taking governmentality to refer to a form of reason that takes as its object the problem of the population, I argue that peri-urban planning in Maputo can be considered as inverse governmentality, that is, a form of reason that takes as its object the problem of governance.

“Urban-Rural Integration” in the Earthquake Zone: Sichuan's Post-Disaster Reconstruction and the Expansion of the Chengdu Metropole

One of the more recent movements in China’s policy for periurban planning and development is the pursuit of “town and country integration” (cheng xiang yi ti hua). The officially reframed approach to planning suggests possibilities for the official reconsideration of developmental practice, but entrenched conditions of governance, land, environmental and developmental policy, and the planning profession itself constrain these possibilities. Perhaps no other context in China illustrates these constraints more dramatically than the reconstruction effort underway in Sichuan following the earthquake of May 12, 2008. Cultural, environmental and economic differences among settlements in the earthquake zone vary widely, and local and national leaders frequently mention the opportunity the recovery presents for innovative and sustainable development, but the “cataclysmic” nature of reconstruction investment, and the extremely rapid and construction-dominated approach to recovery has prevented planners from considering local conditions or alternative approaches. If the official earthquake response has served to propel urbanization along preexisting trajectories, local geographical, historical and cultural conditions nevertheless assert themselves, even if informally. The uniquely dense, dispersed and agriculturally productive Chengdu Plain has already shaped a national discourse on urban-rural relations. The expansion of Chengdu’s urban region into the narrow valleys and minority ethnic settlements across the Longmen Mountains presents new and unpredictable challenges for considering how city and country are related.

L'agriculture face au développement économique : un combat inégal ou des politiques périurbaines à construire / Agriculture versus economic development : an unequal fight or a question of new policies for the peri-urban area

Abstract : Agriculture versus economic development : an unequal fight or a question of new policies for the peri-urban area. From an economic point of view, agriculture is an activity of relatively minor importance in the Grenoble urban region, a region above all renowned for its strong technological development. However, in the regions master plan approved in 2000, farming occupies an essential position. To understand the role of peri-urban agriculture in the preparation of the development plan for the urban region, it is important to specify the different functions that have been assigned to it and to analyse the diverse ways that agriculture has been taken into account in the preparation of regional plans at both the communal and inter- communal level. Agriculture is a key issue in peri-urban planning policies, involving local government officials, planners, and representatives of the farming community.

Aux limites nord de la région urbaine grenobloise, les données nouvelles de l'aménagement

Abstract. — The strategies developed in the last 20 years in the planning of the Grenoble region have failed to control the process of peri-urban expansion. The urban area has continued to widen its zone of economic attraction with the result that the proposed relay area in the north of the region has been unable to assert itself However the double pheno- menon of domination and urban dilution has been curbed by the new era economic of crisis which has effectively limited the expansion of the residential area. Moreover, the rural communities are becoming organised and asserting themselves as small homogeneous territorial units each centred on a common kermal. Although the northern limits of the Grenoble region, as defined in the local town planning project in 1967, can still be justified, the determination to centralise, evident in the initial project, its no longer in keeping with the present tendency towards diversification. At a time when decentralisation is the operative concept, the new orientations in urban and peri-urban planning have to consider the necessity for the harmonisation and the coherence of the different strategies on the wider scale of the departement.