Territorial Realities Research Articles

Production innovation and environmental protection in the management of rural landscapes: the UNESCO vineyard landscapes of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato

In Italy, the landscape appears more and more as the essential element of a sustainable economic development linked to environmental peculiarities and food excellence. In agriculture, the winning aspect of production is no longer measured, in fact, in merely “organoleptic” terms, but also through the issues of environmental protection and care and careful landscape management, as a cornerstone of quality and typical products. In this regard,production - in a broad sense related to wellbeing and leisure, as well as wine - absolutely needs places identifying it, since its value is intimately connected with the quality of the original rural landscapes. These landscapes - that still today represent an element of strong characterization of the single territorial realities - are those that denote a balanced intervention of man on the natural elements; they are those that offer a clear presence of historical signs and legible links between structure and land use. In recent years, agriculture appears to be increasingly responsible for carrying out a plurality of functions, in addition to the acknowledged traditional ones. The maintenance of the hydrogeological structure, the preservation of landscapes with significanthistorical-cultural values, and the maintenance of biodiversity are all the more important. In this perspective,farmers can certainly contribute to conserving and effectively producing high quality landscapes, through a careful “care” of the land in which they work, so as to maintain and strengthen the characteristics of formal quality and historical identity, by avoiding scrupulously useless compromises. A case study of great interest to verify the concreteness and general applicability of this type of reasoning is represented in Piedmont by the territories of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato, recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2014, where there are interesting research and experimentation activities in the fields of agricultural sustainability and territorial planning.

Del paisaje incierto al jardín. Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord

We propose to examine uncertain places and landscapes in a way that allows for the understanding of the main characteristics present in nowadays territorial realities. What if we were to look at these unattended landscapes otherwise? Would not they become the blank pages we are in need of? Is it not true that only in the void can the garden reality be, as a result of filling one “non-site”, capable of hosting a whole new spirit? The work of the French gardener G. Clement, The Third Landscape and Le jardin en movement . De la vallee au jardin planetaire , recognizes these spaces and pursues the task to contemplate and redraw them under its own landscape regard. In order to review uncertain landscapes we will approach decline and uncertainty in the work of the architect Peter Latz. Although it has already been broadly studied, due to his challenge and dialogue towards landscape, the investigation will take on the experience of Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, a fascinating landscape shaped by the fragments and leftovers of a desolate industrial territory which, nonetheless, possesses a great evoking capacity. Territory recovery possibilities are conceived from the garden perspective, from the spontaneous and wild vegetation growing that rejects being an imitation or figurative replica of the natural landscape, outlining the influence performed by this project on the subsequent Third Landscape theories.

The Impact of ESG Investment, How Company and University can Collaborate to Realize It with Local Innovation

Abstract Objective: The World Commission on the Environment and Development defines as sustainable development that which can satisfy “the needs of the present without compromising the possibility of future generations to satisfy their own”. The attention to the issues of the environment, of the circular economy, of the ageing of the population is becoming a way to attract the curiosity and then the interest of the consumers with more and more awareness. Socially responsible finance is no longer a niche issue, so investing an ethical model must become a standard for both international and territorial realities. Methodology: The “myth” of low yields would seem debunked, because the companies that introduce Social, Environmental and Governance criteria have an excellent reputation and do not aim to opportunistic gains in the short, but sustainable results in the long run. An undeniable advantage for all the stakeholders and for the planet itself needs to be added; human resources valorization, equal opportunities, efficient exploitation of natural resources and reduction of pollution produced are just some of the positive results deriving from this new business philosophy. For this reason a new obligation on the commitment of the companies regarding the environment is needed, while for all the corporate summits bonuses and compensations must be rethought according to the objectives of environmental and social sustainability. In the past such commitments were considered by large companies as a further cost, and nowadays they are increasingly becoming an opportunity that even the small economic realities on a territorial level cannot afford to lose. Starting a dialogue, not only with the traditional stakeholders (such as customers and suppliers) direct users of the product value, but especially with the territory given the social impacts deriving from the economic activity on people is necessary. In this respect, it would be particularly fruitful, from the point of view of innovation and growth, to create relations with the institution traditionally identified as the depositary of research itself, that is the University. Findings: ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) is an acronym that indicates the commitment of companies to the environment, sociability and respect for diversity. These criteria are destined to become, in the near future, one of the most important factors of business success, of investments discrimination, of orientation for big funds policies and of reputation for entrepreneurs and managers. Environmental and Social criteria relate to the real consumption of limited natural resources by an economic activity, and to what it then returns in terms of goods and services to the reference communities. The term Governance means the way in which an enterprise is managed, the relationships that are set up with the employees and the methods of remuneration for the top management. Thus, the ESG index is potentially able to reveal whether an economic activity is sustainable in the medium or long term beyond the financial variables. But how is possible to transpose these values on a territory level? Value Added: We have to look to those who are responsible for the innovation and development of that local reality. Unfortunately, the panorama of business, university and public collaboration is still jagged for a deep lack of relations between these different actors. At the same time, technological evolution imposes increasingly tighter rhythms to innovation, forcing companies to find out the R&D function by drawing on university research or acquiring from innovative start-ups. These new companies, often born as university spin-offs, however, encounter many difficulties of development related to the scarcity of capital and therefore to the impossibility of embedding the value created within a patent. It is therefore appropriate that the two main operators of this market, universities and companies, find a way to communicate and collaborate on a common project, creating value and bringing welfare not only to their respective realities, but also to the whole community of the territory interested in the sign of ESG ethic. Recommendations: For this reason it is important to take part in the projects in ethical ESG companies that, relating to the university and the territory, can guide innovation towards a horizon of welfare distributable among all stakeholders. A meeting point between all interests in the game could be a shared Hub where, through a contract, the modalities of collaboration will be established and the common objectives pursued; in this way the university will have the funds for the research, the enterprise – a targeted innovation for its purposes and the territory for new employment possibilities for the workers of the sector.

Aproximaciones al estudio del comportamiento de los productores agropecuarios en el Chaco Seco

In our country, ecologists are increasingly called to play a more active role in natural resource management and in rural ecosystem and landscape planning. The effectiveness of management and planning depends to a large extent on the ability to transform the human behaviors that most influence the state of ecosystems and landscapes. Therefore, the capacity of research processes and results in ecology to transform the reality of territories can be enhanced by its integration with conceptual and methodological elements of the human behavioral sciences. In the territory, changes in land use and land cover are the result of a multiplicity of decisions made by those individuals that affect and beneft from ecosystems, mostly farmers. This paper reviews theories, concepts, methods and applications of social psychology to make visible and discuss their real and potential contributions to the research and management of rural ecosystems and landscapes subject to transformation by agriculture, which are illustrated by studies in the Argentine Dry Chaco. The Theory of Planned Behavior proved to be a conceptual and analytical model of great synoptic value to understand the endogenous motivational factors that influence the formation of intentions to conserve remnant forests by agricultural producers. The social valuation of ecosystem services made it possible to observe the diversity of identities and valuation profles that coexist in the territory. Finally, overlapping trade-off and indifference curves proved to be a simple and powerful tool for linking ecological and preference trade-offs, and for identifying barriers and opportunities for farmers to transition to land use systems that are both biophysically efficient and socially acceptable. https://doi.org/10.25260/EA.18.28.2.0.644

La ingeniería ambiental de la UNESUM, formación universitaria articulada al desarrollo sostenible en el sur de Manabí

Poner en valor a la Universidad actual, es si esta está anclada pertinentemente a un determinado territorio, sin que eso conlleve a desligarse del pensamiento universal; con estos dos elementos en mención, el aporte de este ente académico constituye, por un lado los cambios que provoca en el territorio asentado, y por el otro a la episteme universal. Si ese es el sentido de actuación de la Universidad, provocar y fundamentar cambios en las realidades territoriales, como en el pensamiento universal, de por si se justifica la presencia como en el presente caso en el sur de la provincia de Manabí. Por lo que la Universidad Estatal del Sur de Manabí desde su oferta académica mediante un modelo educativo en la formación profesional, el cómo involucrarse en el territorio que la circunda mediante la vinculación con la sociedad, tomando en cuenta la configuración biofísica-geográfica, y la dinámica económica y social. Además de enmarcarse en la globalización del conocimiento, sin dejar de ajustarse al marco legal vigente. En el contexto en mención, el diseño curricular de la carrera de Ingeniería Ambiental en la Universidad Estatal del Sur de Manabí es donde se inscribe su aporte sustancial desde la actoría de la comunidad universitaria. Profesionales en formación, docentes, autoridades en conexión con la realidad territorial.

Towards Spatial Composite Indicators: A Case Study on Sardinian Landscape

Composite Indicators (CIs) recently earned popularity as decision-support tool in policy-making for their ability to give concise measures of complex phenomena. Despite growing diffusion of the use of CI in policy-making, current research has barely addressed the issue of the spatial dimension of input data and of final indicator scores. Nowadays the spatial dimension of data plays a crucial role in analysis, thanks to recent developments in spatial data infrastructures which has enabled seamless access to a large amount of geographic information. In addition, recent developments in spatial statistical techniques are facilitating the understanding of the presence of spatial effects among data, spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity. These advances are improving our ability to understand the spatial dimension of information, which is crucial to obtain a more robust representation of the territorial reality and insights of territorial dynamics in order to inform decisions in spatial planning and policy-making. This paper proposes an original method for the integration of spatial multivariate analysis and the use of spatial data to extend existing state of the art methods for CIs, as a step towards the construction of Spatial Composite Indicators. The method was successfully tested on a landscape planning case study.

Matière et territoire dans la culture du logiciel libre

Cet article interroge deux lieux communs associes a la culture numerique et plus particulierement a celle du logiciel libre. Le premier, celui de l’immateriel, consiste a aborder le cyberespace comme un monde informationnel dote de proprietes distinctes de celles du monde physique. Le second, celui de la deterritorialisation, presente les collectifs en ligne comme detaches de tout ancrage territorial. L’article montre la maniere dont ces lieux communs habitent la culture du logiciel libre, en revenant aux origines de celle-ci au sein du AI Lab du MIT, en examinant l’influence exercee sur elle par la pensee cybernetique et en analysant le processus d’extension et de globalisation du free software. L’article developpe egalement une critique de ces topoi, en montrant qu’ils contribuent a occulter la continuite entre les transformations du monde numerique et celles du reste de la societe. La conclusion revient sur l’essor recent du mouvement maker, fortement influence par le logiciel libre, et met en avant la persistance des enjeux lies a la matiere et au territoire, y compris au sein de la culture numerique.

Organizzazione territoriale e produzione documentaria tra XII e XIII secolo: primi sondaggi sul caso genovese

The paper aims to analyze the imbreviatura of the pronouncements, written by the Genoese notaries, released by the local consules of different territorial realities, in order to verify the adhesion with the documentary model offered by the pronouncements given by the Commune of Genoa, being one of the aspects of the jurisdictional control in fieri.

Selección de herramientas web para la creación de actividades de aprendizaje en Cibermutua

Ciber-mutua es un ciber-museo desarrollado para el Museo Territorial de los Andes Nororientales (Mutua), el cual se proyectó como un espacio para conocer y explorar las diferentes realidades urbanísticas, patrimoniales y territoriales de la región centro-oriental de Colombia, coadyuvando en la recuperación del patrimonio cultural y urbano de la ciudad de Tunja, Colombia. Con el fin de reforzar el conocimiento expuesto en el ciber-museo y generar interés entre sus usuarios, se crearon actividades digitales de aprendizaje que hacen uso de herramientas web libres. Este artículo enfatiza en el proceso investigativo llevado a cabo en la selección de herramientas web para la creación de las actividades digitales de aprendizaje en el ciber-museo, exponiendo los beneficios e inconvenientes que se presentaron durante este proceso.

The impact of legal vulnerability on environmental inequalities. A case study of coastal populations in Guadeloupe (French Antilles)

This paper draws on sociology, geography and law to analyse the exposure of populations to coastal multihazards in a postcolonial and overseas context. The research is based on a case study conducted in two municipalities in Guadeloupe (French Antilles): Deshaies and Capesterre-Belle-Eau. The corpus of data consists of 52 interviews conducted with inhabitants and institutional actors, as well as a set of spatialized data and a regulatory corpus. The analysis underscores how public policies must contend with a complex territorial reality that is still bound to the postcolonial past and legacy of slavery in Guadeloupe. The potential contradictions between regularization policies, hazard prevention policies and policies to curb insalubrious housing tend to expose the most fragile populations to what we refer to here as legal vulnerability.

O “progresso” em Blumenau/SC: educação, pobreza e desigualdade social no território de uma escola

<p>O presente texto reflete a relação entre educação e pobreza e problematiza o papel da escola frente às desigualdades sociais presentes no seu território. O território aqui em destaque diz respeito ao Bairro Progresso localizado no município de Blumenau/SC. O presente consiste em um estudo de caso cujos principais recursos metodológicos utilizados foram: Data Social 2.0, Mapa Temático de Vulnerabilidade Social<strong> </strong>(MAVS), dados do Censo do IBGE (2010) e contribuições de autores/as cujos estudos focam o município em questão. Conhecida nacionalmente por possuir uma economia em franco desenvolvimento, comparada à Alemanha (Blumenau como cidade alemã) situada no chamado “Vale Europeu”, também é perpassada pelas mazelas da desigualdade social que assujeita milhares de pessoas à pobreza, indivíduos estes que estão vivendo basicamente em ocupações irregulares e áreas de risco. Neste contexto vivem crianças e adolescentes em idade escolar cujas realidades são, por vezes, negligenciadas pelos/as tanto pela sociedade quanto pelos docentes, no contexto escolar. Considera-se, entretanto, que os profissionais da educação precisam (re)conhecer a realidade do território escolar, rever suas ações político-pedagógicas visando a não reprodução das desigualdades sociais nas relações educativas, bem como compreender que a pobreza se constitui em uma violação dos direitos humanos. </p>

A neutral model for the simulation of linear networks in territories

A landscape matrix is the support of biotic and abiotic flows, and in that sense, requires increased interest from ecological modellers. This matrix is partly composed of linear elements, such as roads and field borders, that delimit land uses and are the result of socio-economic drivers. The geometrical properties of these elements could affect flows of water bodies, fauna, and flora. A large amount of research on landscape matrix simulation has been conducted using neutral models, but the efforts have been limited to 1km2 and have been principally devoted to field borders. However, simulating largest territories in neutral models requires consideration of supplementary elements, such as road networks. Furthermore, the sinuosities of the linear elements in territories have rarely been considered per se. We proposed a hierarchical model based on successive imbrication of deformed networks, with the deformation being realized on the basis of a reverse Douglas–Peucker algorithm. We first isolated the hierarchical levels of the landscape and analyzed their relative deformations. Then we constructed the hierarchical model and we tested it on a real territory in the Mediterranean zone. Its structural realism was tested against other common neutral models using the pattern-oriented modelling approach. The hierarchical model was the only neutral model able to represent simultaneously the variabilities of three patterns having implications in ecological processes: polyline lengths, sinuosities and polygon areas. Possible improvements of the model to address non-stationary processes and its potential for implementing geoprospective scenarios are discussed.

Articulación de las relaciones interterritoriales en Estados unitarios y federales

La tensión en la distribución del poder, atendiendo dinámicas de centralización y descentralización, impide muchas veces una articulación coherente de las realidades territoriales, promoviendo, por el contrario, resistencias periféricas o separatistas. A pesar de todos los recursos estatales, ¿qué está sucediendo en la articulación de las políticas llevadas a cabo por los niveles de gobierno que no encuentran un vástago suficiente de interacción interterritorial? El presente trabajo hace mención a modelos unitarios y federales como punto de partida en el desarrollo de la cuestión, con un planteamiento de la problemática vigente para formular aspectos atenuantes, así como estimulantes, con luces que optimicen actuaciones conjuntas o, al menos, concertadas.

Social Economy in Post-communist Romania: What Kind of Volunteering for What Type of NGOs?

This article analyses the social economy from the perspective of NGOs and voluntary work. The research was conducted on four different territorial levels in the Western Region of Romania and employed both quantitative (questionnaires administered to the general population and within NGOs, bivariate analyses) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews within NGOs) methods of analysis. This method of working has allowed a picture of NGOs and volunteering to be formed that is correlated with territorial realities in the western part of Romania. It has thus been possible to see what underlies the coming into existence of NGOs, their economic scale, and what areas they succeed in addressing. Secondly, a description is provided of the typical Western Region volunteer, focusing mainly on social and motivational aspects.

From Design to Action in Clinical and Social Complexity: Continous Assesment of the Alt Penedés Program

From Design to Action in Clinical and Social Complexity: Continous Assesment of the Alt Penedés Program

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN PLANNING PROCESS IN MUNICIPALITIES AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE STUDIES AND RESEARCH IN LATVIA

This article deals with the implementation stages and approaches of the trilateral cooperation “university – student – local government” as well as the benefits and limiting aspects in a real territory planning context. The research summarises the evaluation of the Latvia University of Agriculture (LUA) landscape architecture studies experience in cooperation with 41 municipal and national organisations and 4 unions from Latvia since 2013. Key findings point to the following benefits: the university as a provider of study process obtains a better insight into the topical problems and issues regarding the territorial/territory planning, it has an opportunity to promote the study programmes and the work quality of the future specialists; the greatest benefit for the students is that they can be better prepared for a real work in their chosen profession and they gain experience in real project work which later will be reflected in their CVs; the gain for the local governments is that they have a scientific substantiation for making more appropriate decisions with regard to the further development of the territory, and they have more variants of ideas for a specific territorial development. Restricting factor is time which is determined by the study courses.

Urban disorder and vitality

The concepts of order and disorder applied to urban and territorial issues involve complex definitions. Why do cities, in spite of the effort made to give them order, even though from time to time this order has been codified in different ways, end up being untidy? In the context in which the two concepts will be used in this paper it is not possible to imagine them as alternatives, but they are taken as dialectically constituting territorial reality. “Order” and “disorder” oppose each other but do not clash with each other. In the hectic organisation of urban and territorial reality one stimulates the other and each, in opposing, determines change. The inclination towards order (or tendency towards order) tends, on the one hand, to “repair” the disorder but, on the other, brings out the conditions for disorder to show itself again and materialise with its problems but with the vitality implicit in change. Change brings disorder but public commitment through institutions cannot but aspire to recover a level of order, hopefully, more advanced. Order and disorder are closely linked with each other, one producing the other in a circular process. The urban, precisely because of its constituent construction (social, productive and economic variability; clash between powers and options of models of society) cannot be stable, but the continuous recovery of “order” responds not only to functional needs, but also to ethical options: we should not consider all urban “order” as positive, compared with negative disorder; there are experiences of oppressive and coercive urban order. It is always disorder that determines better levels and quality of order. Though it may be the dynamic factor of every urban condition, we must remember that it always requires new order from which to start out again. Disorder, however it is identified, constitutes a permanent fact, inherent in the urban condition; it is neither the result of wrong planning (sometimes also this), nor of a perverse will, but rather of the dynamic mechanisms of the city itself.

Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Coffee Industry: An Examination of Indicators Disclosed

Corporations operating in the coffee industry are no strangers to the challenges of sustainable business. Unstable downward price pressure encourages coffee producers to engage in environmentally detrimental practices, whilst the social fabric of coffee producing communities has been disrupted and livelihoods have suffered. Sustainability indicators are used by corporations to disclose and measure Corporate Social Performance (CSP) in an attempt to address sustainability challenges. Indicators must be practical and appropriate as they create values that inform social and political policy-making. As the selection of indicators is discretionary, there is a chance that they may not suitably represent sustainability challenges, rather what the corporation perceives to be of salience. There is a need therefore to identify the indicators used and examine their suitability for representing the sustainability challenges faced by the industry by drawing on themes identified in a literature review. By conducting a latitudinal (cross-sectional) content analysis of the latest available sustainability report and/or webpages of ten British Coffee Association corporate members (Bewley’s, Cafedirect Plc, Caffe Nero, Costa Ltd, Finlay Beverages Ltd, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Lavazza Coffee UK Ltd, Matthew Algie, Nestle UK & Ireland and Taylors of Harrogate), a total of 94 (44 environmental, 30 social and 20 economic) indicators are identified. It is found that for the most part the indicators used suit the sustainability challenges identified in the literature review. Several observations are drawn: the variety of indicators disclosed highlights the discretionary nature of sustainability reporting as well as crucial differences in organisation characteristics (degree of vertical integration). While the extant literature focusses on sustainability challenges related to coffee production, indicators are used to disclose performance throughout the global value chain, demonstrating that companies account for sustainability from bean to cup. Single-use indicators denote unique sustainability challenges that corporations lend salience to, suggesting that indicators may be tailored to territorial realities. Comments are made towards the degree of standardisation found between indicators with reference to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), where the cases following GRI guidelines tended to be those disclosing the greatest quantity of indicators. Despite operating in the context of neoliberal globalisation where corporations are increasingly expected to assume the responsibility of tackling sustainability challenges, this study underlines the voluntary nature of sustainability indicator selection, finding substantial similarities as well as differences in the quality and quantity of indicators disclosed.

Damnificados de la reconstrucción post-terremoto: Efectos del modelo en el hábitat rural del Maule

Following the earthquake and tsunami that occurred on February 27, 2010, the reconstruction policy implemented by the Chilean government favored a process led by private actors and offered standard urban-oriented solutions for all affected territories. Rural zones of the Maule Region, however, had to deal with weak local institutions and the lack of economic incentives for private agents to intervene in these highly disperse and thinly populated areas. This paper reflects on the effects of reconstruction policies on the reality of rural communities and territories. The absence of policy frameworks specifically designed to deal with the rural habitat, which should be understood as both a set of physical features and the result of social, historical and identity-related processes, suggests that post-earthquake programs failed to identify the particular characteristics of the territory. This increased the precariousness of living conditions, the loss of heritage and identity and the intensification of migration to peri-urban areas.

El partido y la ciudad. Modelos de organización y militancia del PSUC clandestino (1963-1975)

Pese a que la bibliografía sobre la historia de los comunistas en España durante el franquismo ha crecido notablemente en los últimos años, nuestro conocimiento de las estructuras organizativas de las que se dotó cada realidad territorial comunista para realizar su trabajo político está aún lejos de ser satisfactorio. ¿Qué forma daban los comunistas a su estructura organizativa y qué finalidades buscaban con ella? ¿De qué manera estaba pensada para relacionarse con la sociedad? ¿Y en qué medida estas decisiones modificaban la manera de hacer política de los militantes? El presente artículo se propone responder a estas y otras preguntas investigando el caso del Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya (PSUC), sin duda el núcleo comunista más fuerte del país y cuya organización cambió radicalmente en el bienio 1969-1970: de una estructura vertical y poco diversificada a otra descentralizada y más abierta. Semejante cambio le permitió al partido crecer cuantitativa y cualitativamente, mantener un contacto más estrecho con la sociedad catalana y crear un marco en el que la militancia pudiera actuar de forma más autónoma y creativa respecto al pasado.