Territorial Actors Research Articles

The Metaverse Territorial Brand: A Contemporary Concept

The “Metaverse Territorial Brand” integrates core and interconnected elements into a virtual, interactional, experiential, and immersive space known as the metaverse. This type of brand encompasses the connection with immersive territories that may or may not be digital twins of real territories. It also encompasses two interconnected physical scales: the territorial and the regional, involved in another type of emerging territorial scale, known as the metaversal scale. Therefore, the “Metaverse Territorial Brand” is a digital-immersive extension of the territorial brand of physical territories, encompassing specific geographical and cultural aspects, but directed to the metaverse environment. This brand is a symbolic digital construction, but also a multifaceted one that incorporates discursive and visual elements, articulated by the social actors of the immersive territory, aiming to create a specific and distinct identity for a space in the metaverse. When talking about social actors in the metaverse (users), we highlight that this set of actors may or may not be the same as the physical territory. It is also important to highlight that both the territorial brand directed to physical territories and the “Metaverse Territorial Brand” are formed from the power relations of a given set of social actors. Therefore, without the strategic intention of a plurality of social actors that stimulate these relationships, there is no type of territorial brand involved.

Expansion of the distribution range of angiosperm species for the states of Maranhão and Tocantins, Brazil, through a territorial action plan

We expand the geographical distribution of 10 angiosperm species in Maranhão and Tocantins states. The species were collected during two field expeditions carried out by the Territorial Action Plan for the conservation of endangered species of the Meio Norte Territory between September 20 and 30, 2022 and between July 24 and 30, 2023, in both states. Photographs, comments on morphology and distribution-al data are provided for species of Acanthaceae, Aristolochiaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Myrtaceae, Orchidace-ae, Plantaginaceae, Pontederiaceae and Turneraceae.

Public Territorial Governance and Community-Based Tourism for Sustainable Local Development: A Case-Study of Paraty, Brazil

Summary Community-Based Tourism (CBT) is a mode of tourism management that has several foundations articulated for Sustainable Local Development (SLD). Nevertheless, achieving its principles often depends on the interaction with other territorial actors, that is, on Public Territorial Governance (PTG). Consequently, this case study identifies how PTG mechanisms can involve CBT in the process of co-promoting SLD by focusing on the Paraty/Brazil Municipal Tourism Council (COMTUR). This was studied because it is a PTG space open to local CBT initiatives that discuss SLD-related agendas. We collected data through the document analysis of COMTUR minutes and the on-site observation of COMTUR meetings. Data were interpreted by the thematic content analysis technique. The results show that PTG can involve CBT in the process of co-promotion of SLD, through four main elements: Co-need, co-potentiality, co-effectiveness, and co-legitimacy. Information © The Authors 2024

Democratic participatory networks and governance processes in Sicily

Democratic participation improves the chances of success of local development policies. New governance processes that directly involve the actors who inhabit the territories are necessary for the challenges that sustainable growth requires. Therefore, the feedback on the pre-existing conditions of cooperation and coexistence is essential for carrying out actions with a place-based logic of development. The Innovation Helix Model allows us to understand the relational dynamics and support territorial strategies in enhancing innovation processes that contemplate the relationship between civil society, public and private institutions, and the natural environment from the perspective of a democratic approach. In this way, ecosystemic innovation is a dynamic network of territorial actors interconnected within a delimited geographical space. This study proposes an innovative way of investigating territorial relationship networks. It examines and describes the network deriving from the policies implemented in an internal area of Sicily. The governance processes implemented through partnership agreements between local actors over ten years have created relationships measured and described through Social Network Analysis (SNA), specifically with Affiliation Networks and Community Detection with a bipartite structure. The study moves towards an innovative territory analysis, looking for the relational links and providing references for building bottom-up policies with greater awareness.

Gestión territorial contemporánea entre los nahuas de Tlamacazapa, Estado de Guerrero, México

Territorial management, as an alternative tool for the controversial concept of development, offers land management plans to regulate anthropogenic activities and protect ecosystems. However, institutional measures continue to bring together the participation of territorial actors and to be challenged by increased environmental crises. The above motivates the following question: What is the relationship between territorial management and human capacities? This article aims to analyze the contemporary territorial management of the Nahuas of Tlamacazapa from the human capacities perspective, focusing on the family, cultural, and environmental spheres. This was researched in poor Nahua families and their ways of occupying, managing, and taking advantage of the territory based on their abilities, knowledge, and skills. The methodology used was qualitative. Ontological dialogues help specify the relationship between study families and the territory. The materialization of ontological knowledge in the territory intends to extend the discussion of contemporary territorial management.

Improved cross-border relevance through integrated interventions: the TAPE tool of the INTERREG V-A Slovakia-Hungary Programme

ABSTRACT The paper presents the first outcomes and results of using an integrated territorial tool applied by the Interreg V-A Slovakia-Hungary Cooperation Programme (2014–2020), the ‘Territorial Action Plan for Employment’, or, briefly: the TAPE. The tool is aimed at facilitating quality employment and cross-border labour mobility through the implementation of 2–7 interdependent projects within a geographically defined subregion of the programme area, with the involvement of SMEs, training institutions, NGOs and municipalities. The author introduces the tool and the nine TAPEs financed by the CBC programme and gives a comprehensive assessment of their outcomes and results from the points of view of cross-border labour market development, integrated soft planning and trust building with a special focus on the aspect of cross-border relevance. The study concludes that the tool does not meet the preliminary expectations: its cross-border relevance is not much stronger than the traditional standalone CBC projects. At the same time, the bottom-up cross-border planning exercise has significant added value which might make the tool attractive for other CBC programmes, too.

Economic and financial analysis in the pea production system (Pisum sativumL.) in Nariño, Colombia

The pea production system in the Department of Nariño, Colombia, constitutes an important pillar within the life strategies of Nariño families, representing a good portion of the high Andean landscape. However, despite its importance, there remains a notable lack of information in aspects such as direct and indirect costs, profitability, and other key economic variables, for the development of this productive system and for decision making, particularly in the Nariño context. current. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to carry out a detailed economic and financial analysis, focused on the producers participating in the AGROSAVIA Social Balance project, to facilitate a deep understanding of the dynamics of this productive system. To this end, 38 semi-structured interviews were carried out with producers adopting Agrosavia Obonuco Andina and Agrosavia San Isidro varieties between the years 2019 to 2022. Producers were identified through the snowball strategy and references from key territorial actors. The analysis involved calculations of economic and financial ratios, production costs and the application of an econometric model based on the Cobb-Douglas function, using ordinary least squares to evaluate the efficiency and inefficiency of the crop. The findings reveal an annual increase in production costs of 9.5 %, a financial profitability of 35 % according to the internal rate of return (IRR), and a technical efficiency of 1.67. Factors such as seed and labour exerted a predominant influence on productivity, while aspects such as production area and age showed inefficiencies, which is why more efficient management strategies for available physical resources, more active involvement of the family and management strategies and appropriation of knowledge and technologies with an intergenerational approach.

Optimizing spatial survey administration adopting RT-GSCS: A statistical perspective on performance metrics

The Real-Time Geo-Spatial Consensus System (RT-GSCS) is a web-based open-source tool designed for the administration of real-time spatial surveys. One distinguishing feature of this system lies in the adoption of the Real-Time Spatial Delphi logic as the main computational algorithm to achieve a convergence of opinions within a group of individuals. The system is available at http://rtgscs.com/ and is particularly instrumental in supporting the decision-making process when spatial data is absent or when user judgments are solicited for territorial actions. Since the release of the beta version, the system has undergone multiple iterations and significant changes, and for this reason, an updated assessment should be conducted. In this paper, we present an in-depth exploration of the latest version of RT-GSCS (v3.0), which includes novel algorithms, statistical analysis, and spatial techniques, optimized for survey administration. The analysis is meticulously conducted by evaluating a comprehensive array of parameters, encompassing performance metrics, spatial elements, security, updates, and privacy assessments. Moreover, a thorough examination of user feedback is presented, enriching the depth of our investigation. This mixed-method approach ensures a robust and updated investigation of the system, facilitating a nuanced comprehension of the process and the attainment of spatial consensus.•Existing spatial survey administration systems cannot facilitate group collaboration for achieving a spatial consensus on the territory in real-time.•The RT-GSCS experienced substantial modifications, necessitating a revised technical evaluation from the initial beta version to its current version.•The proposed method fills the gaps of a technical performance evaluation of the latest version of RT-GSCS, useful for achieving a spatial consensus among a group of individuals with an assessment of the overall performances.

Cooperative governance in the Mediterranean: developing a macro-regional application model

The European and Mediterranean territorial administrations lack transnational mechanisms that facilitate their active contribution to resolving common global issues that affect them. This situation has led subnational entities to develop their own alliances and collaborations through associations and networks. In this environment of growing cross-cutting and interdependence, concepts such as cooperative governance, territorial governance, or collaborative networks are increasingly present and, at the same time, their meaning becomes more complex. Thus, the need for a cooperative governance system that can facilitate these collaborative processes in a Euro-Mediterranean context has gained relevance. This article arises as a contribution to the need expressed by multi-level administrations at the European and Mediterranean level to define their own cooperation strategies. It presents the main results of a research work on collaborative strategies of various territorial actors (networks, subnational entities, and institutions) carried out during 2023 within the framework of the School of Public Administration of Catalonia. The main objective of this analysis is to contribute to defining an analytical tool that is useful for Euro-Mediterranean territorial cooperation, both in terms of study and policy definition.

From Planning to Strategic Territorial Management

Territorial action in Morocco has been characterized since the colonial period by conflicts between spatial, institutional, and territorial logics. During the colonial period, there was a predominant intention to control the national territory and modernize the country. Shortly after gaining independence, Morocco gradually engaged in a top-down territorial planning policy, with the main objective of improving the living conditions of its citizens. Today, things have changed; the centralizing development approach has become obsolete in the face of two key dimensions: territorial diversity and the presence of various territorial actors, including humans. This is where strategic territorial management comes into play. Therefore, the aim of this article is to study the transition from territorial planning to strategic territorial management in the municipality of Settat through participative governance. A qualitative method was adopted for this purpose. Documentary analysis and questionnaires were essential tools for data collection. The results indicate that strategic territorial management at the municipal level faces several challenges, primarily related to the inefficiency of development policies. This inefficiency is mainly attributed to a lack of citizen participation in the territorial decision-making process.

Evaluación del Impacto Territorial, Análisis de Costes y Beneficios y principio de No Causar Daños Significativos para el diseño de obras y planes sostenibles

Economic, financial, and spatial analytical models are known to be integral parts of large territorial works and plans. Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) and, newly, Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) and Do Not Significant Harms principle (DNSH) are required to support the decision-making and evaluation process underlying climate change, initial strategic investment confirmation and final reporting. Looking at them from an economic-geographical perspective and drawing inspiration from ongoing experiences in Europe and Italy, methodological and operational guidelines are suggested in the paper to address this issue, so that both the environmental and social costs are reflected in the costs/prices/returns and in the mitigation of the public works impacts, creating a strong link between economy, territory, and environment, so that externalities can become internalities. The underlying thesis is that, knowing the territorial impacts generated by the TIA and the sustainable consistency of the project with the DNSH taxonomy, it is possible to adopt compensatory and mitigation actions, including in the related CBAs; and, at the same time, to minimise the costs resulting from the lack of policy coordination in territorial action between regional and local plans, both horizontal and vertical, when large infrastructure projects come from top-down decision as in the case of Recovery and Resilience Facility plan

Territorial Management: A Tool for Local Development

Territorial management involves reinventing the territory in terms of projects and promoting its development. It entails guiding transformation processes and altering the territory while considering its specificities and resources, in order to create a development process that engages all local stakeholders. The objective of territorial management is to encourage the development of the territory with the participation of the entire population. It involves building a system of alliances where the population is seen as a stakeholder. This fosters improved institutional cooperation among local authorities, aiming to meet current needs without compromising resources for future generations.Maintaining a fundamental balance between territorial development, social cohesion, and environmental conservation generally requires territorial strategies that involve collective action based on a comprehensive organization, encompassing both economic and social dynamics. The demand for territorial development is increasing, making it essential for Algeria to transform its approaches to territorial action. A developing territory results from collective interaction that anticipates threats and opportunities, devising corresponding territorial strategies.

Participatory modeling of past, current and future groundwater governance: An experiment in Aousja Ghar El Melh, Tunisia

Anticipatory approaches are increasingly used to guide decision-making on environmental issues. A number of these approaches, particularly in the field of anticipatory governance, promote the participation of users in anticipatory thinking. Various tools are already used for this purpose. Nevertheless, most of these tools focus on the present and the future, rarely on the past. This article introduces a tool for the participatory modeling of past, current and future governance of groundwater in a territory. This tool was coupled with the Futures Triangle to foster dialog among the actors of Aousja Ghar El Melh territory in Tunisia. The tool allowed opening up dialog on what stakeholders in Aousja Ghar El Melh wanted to keep or change in past and current governance, and what future they envisioned for their territory. This article highlights the need for further methodological developments in order to be more dynamic and better integrate the three governance temporalities. Several avenues are discussed, including a dynamic presentation of the model and the use of role-playing games. This experiment also highlights the need not only to identify the different approaches to anticipatory governance at hand, but also to think ahead about how to articulate them, especially in an inter-disciplinary and multi-actor process.

Exploring Cross-Border Labor Commuting as a Practice of Tactical Mobility

Within the last few years there has been an increased interest in the interplay of structure and agency in border studies. Following the strategic-relational approach, these studies generally focus on territorial actors, particularly subnational institutions and how they use their capacities, to establish transnational cooperation and networks, to overcome the obstacles resulting from national and / or multi-governmental policies. Like subnational organizations and institutions on border regions, cross-border commuters develop and use tactics to overcome the socio-economic and legal risks and crises. Based on the thematic analysis of the semi-structured interviews with commuters from Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Poland, it is demonstrated that by being mobile across the borders, commuters aim at gaining flexibility and a relatively advantageous position in housing and labor markets of different countries. This paper, by referring to the strategic-relational approach, argues that cross-border mobility is practiced as a form of tactical mobility in which commuters constantly revise their mobility practices, depending on new, emerging socio-economic conditions. Moreover, by referring to the concept of de Certeau’s (1984) tactic, three main typologies of cross-border mobility are conceptualized.

THE TOURISM SECTOR AND TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT IN MARRAKECH CITY - MOROCCO

The tourism sector has had a significant impact on the territorial development of Marrakech city. Although it brings economic benefits, it is important to manage the social and environmental challenges associated with this growth wisely. An integrated approach, the participation of territorial actors, and the preservation of cultural identity are key elements for sustainable territorial development of the city. This article aims to contribute to the reflection on the phenomenon of tourism and its impact on the territorial development of Marrakech city. To achieve this, we will first present the geographical and economic situation of this territory. We will then discuss the data and statistics that position this city as the top tourist destination in Morocco. The final section of this article will examine the effects of tourism on the standard of living and economic sectors of the city's population

Toxic Release Damage Distance Assessment Based on the Short-Cut Method: A Case Study for the Transport of Chlorine and Hydrochloric Acid in Densely Urbanized Areas in the Mediterranean Region.

The transportation of dangerous goods by road is the most accident-prone mode of transportation, even if accidents involving road transportation of dangerous goods are considered as a Low Probability and High Consequence event (LPHC event). However, several dangerous goods are transported by road networks, such as petroleum products and chemicals, which can generate major dangerous consequences such as spills, explosions, fires, or toxic clouds. In this context, this article presents a method to calculate and quickly quantify the sizes of impact zones characterized by high lethality and irreversible injuries to people in the case of a hazardous materials transport accident. This method is used as a module for the analysis of the consequences of different potential accident scenarios, for the Web-GIS platform proposed by LOSE+LAB, that implements appropriate ICT tools and systems for monitoring the flow of goods that would enable a continuous monitoring system at the cross-border level and transmit data and information to the territory actors involved in the management of dangerous goods according to the ADR standard. The proposed method provides the user with a visualization of the possible outcomes of an event by reproducing the impact area for different accident scenarios, which can provide quick maps of the hazard and represents a decision support system for territorial governance in terms of intervention and response protocols for emergency management in the cases of dangerous goods accidents.

Territorial Marketing for A Collective Momentum and A Positive Vision Case of the “We Casablanca” Brand

The purpose of this research is to examine the relevance of the establishment of a territorial brand and its ability to honour its promises in terms of optimizing territorial actions for the inhabitants, tourists and investors, as well as its ability to bring stakeholders together and bring them together around a single mission: to promote the territory at the national and international levels. We considered the territory of Casablanca/ Morocco suitable for research for two main reasons; the first is that we are close to the problem since we collaborate with the local development company «Casablanca Events & animation» pilot of the «WeCasablanca» territorial brand, the second is that the brand is the first territorial brand launched in Africa in 2016. We chose a multi-target system incorporating the three territorial marketing targets and a methodological mix combining two approaches conducted simultaneously; a qualitative approach for an in-depth investigation, and a quantitative approach for a measured diagnosis. The main results show that Casablanca is a city appreciated by its residents and tourists but whose image is contrasted and that the Wecasablanca brand is a brand that reflects great positive and federating perspectives of stakeholders but that we should continue to build

Strategic Competence Model for Understanding Smart Territorial Development

In this paper, the authors propose a multi-level model for the strategic competence of territorial units, which can help explain why some territorial units manage to respond appropriately to global challenges and thrive while others fail. Strategic competence is defined by two components: substantive knowledge and strategic connections. This is the foundation for the development of four ideal types of strategic competences at the level of territorial actors—Conductor, Broker, Lone Wolf, or Rent Seeker—and four at the level of territorial units—Pioneers, Absorbers, Drifters, or Laggers. This multi-level model forms the basis for future research to transform the concepts into a set of measurable indicators to determine the current strategic competence of regions and territories. Additionally, it will provide the basis for research-informed policymaking for the purpose of co-designing, co-developing, co-implementing and co-measuring policy initiatives and their results.

Contribution of territorial social capital mechanisms to social innovation: the mediating role of the knowledge absorption capacity of territorial actors in the city of Agadir

Contribution of territorial social capital mechanisms to social innovation: the mediating role of the knowledge absorption capacity of territorial actors in the city of Agadir

Barriers to the Implementation of Smart Projects in Rural Areas, Small Towns, and the City in Brno Metropolitan Area

Abstract The implementation of smart projects can contribute to solving the current development problems of municipalities and cities of varied sizes. Although the concept of smart development is a vague term in the literature, in practice it refers to projects based on the use of modern technologies, to improve the quality of life considering economic, social, and environmental dimensions. However, not all local governments in the Czech Republic implement smart projects, even though the smart city concept is currently receiving considerable attention from national governments and from the European Union. This paper characterizes the perception of barriers to the implementation of smart projects from the perspective of fifteen representatives and officials of local governments located in the Brno Metropolitan Area in the Czech Republic. The research was conducted using semi-structured interviews with these fifteen territorial actors. It was found that the barriers to the implementation of smart projects are related to internal factors in the municipalities, such as the lack of interest of municipal leaders and officials or potential technical complications accompanying the implementation of projects. However, external factors such as the Czech government’s vague grasp of the smart cities concept or cyber threats also play a role. Perceived barriers were categorized according to their type and schematized.