Territorial Impact Research Articles

Territorial Impact Assessment for evaluation of Territorial Cohesion Policies: the STeMA-TIA 3.0 and social housing in Italy

Download ArticleBy Maria Prezioso, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Francesco Dini, University of Florence, Silvia Grandi, University of Bologna, Michele Pigliucci, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Federico Martellozzo, University of Florence, Italy Researching Territorial Impact Assessment for Cohesion Policies The impact analysis and the identification of the most effective policy recommendations in order to set […]

Land Tactics of the Single Housing Unit in the Informal Urban Growth in Albania

Learning from the informal transitional phases is a process that focuses on the diversity and multiple forms in which land and building alike are shaped and re-shaped in the territory. Moreover, there might be various reasons as to why this perpetual condition persists in informal areas in the Albanian context. This diversity is analyzed and named according to the impact that it has on the territory, including land fragmentation and densifcation. The purpose of this research is to illustrate transitional phases, of the informal settlements, to identify the cases of the multiform and to open up an irrevocable professional debate on the matter that not all informal settlements are the same in the territory. This starts from the local Albanian practices of building informally to the actual form of territorial transition. All of the practices have one thing in common; they are half-realized utopias. Such is the urbanization process in Albania which has never co-occurred within the settlement and parceling in informal areas. It is up to urban planners and landscapers to identify these conditions even if the public and institutional apparatus do not deal with them. Passing from the informal practices and into their territorial partialities, the methodology gives a tactical description of the territorial impact as a result of the three processes of the urban informal growth in Albania: a) building, b) parceling, and c) putting in infrastructure. These processes are considered as a transitional phase and analyzed in this study. The multiform of their alternations can be described as land tactics, with a high impact on fragmentation and densification. The result illustrates and shows that not all the informal settlements are the same, although the same typology of the housing unit. Architects, landscapers, and social workers can contribute to the methodological solutions, starting from a single inhabitant and practices described and then enlarged to the regional scale of all 55 informal areas.

Improving soil and water conservation and ecosystem services by sustainable soil management practices: From a global to an Italian soil partnership

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identify the need to restore degraded soils in order to improve productivity and the provision of ecosystem services. The aim is to support food production, store and supply clean water, conserve biodiversity, sequester carbon, and improve soil resilience in a context of climate change. Within this framework, in order to achieve the SDGs and to correct land management in the long-term, soil management is considered mandatory. The reduction of land degradation should be based on various sustainable soil management practices that improve and maintain soil organic matter levels, increase water infiltration, and improve soil water management. This technical review - a policy paper - summarizes the sustainable and territorial impact of soil degradation, including soil water erosion, from the global level to the European and National levels. Furthermore, with the aim of sharing ongoing soil and water management actions, instruments, and initiatives, we provide information on soil and water conservation activities and prospects in Italy. Highlights - Sustainable soil management practices should be implemented to address soil degradation. - Impact of erosion on crop production reduces global crop yields by 0.4% per year. - Improving the physical and chemical characteristics of soils can contribute to store and supply water to plants. - Soil protection is a very important topic in the European Commission’s proposal for the CAP 2021-2027.

Trabajo industrial y dinámicas socioterritoriales en las ciudades de Ensenada y Berisso. El caso de la Refinería YPF-La Plata (1993-2012)

En este trabajo se analiza el impacto social, económico y territorial que tuvo la privatización de La Refinería YPF-La Plata en las ciudades de Ensenada y Berisso en el año 1993, y cómo se reconfiguraron a partir de la vuelta a manos del Estado en el año 2012. Una de las características centrales de la empresa petrolera estatal fue su gestión paternalista, la cual atravesaba los espacios de la vida cotidiana de sus trabajadores, la familia y la comunidad. A partir de la privatización surgieron nuevos tipos de contrataciones y un entramado industrial conformado por Pymes y Cooperativas de Trabajo que introdujeron fuertes cambios tanto en el mundo del trabajo “ypefeano” como en la dinámica urbana de ambas ciudades. Se utilizó una metodología cualitativa flexible basada en entrevistas en profundidad a trabajadores y ex trabajadores de la refinería, funcionarios públicos y representantes gremiales. Se complementó con el registro de organismos del Estado como OPDS, ADA e información censal del INDEC.

SDG Implementation at the Local Level: Lessons From Responses to the Coronavirus Crisis in Three Cities in the Global South

A body of work is starting to emerge that seeks to build on the challenges and lessons of the current global coronavirus crisis for long term sustainability planning and development. This perspective article argues that central to such reflections should be an acknowledgement of the intense territorial impact of the crisis, especially in the places where most of the world’s population is increasingly living: cities. We review existing frameworks for SDG implementation in the cities of Bengaluru (India), Medellin (Colombia) and Cape Town (South Africa) and use this as the backdrop for an analysis of local responses to the pandemic. We build on this analysis to reflect on three main avenues for SDG implementation going forward: multi-level governance, the science-policy interface and citizen and society engagement. We argue that strengthening these structures and collaborations will be central to more sustainable, long-term inclusive and evidence-based decision-making processes and global policy implementation in cities in a post COVID-19 world.

The Sustainability Dimensions: A Territorialized Approach to Sustainable Development

The paper proposes the territory as the fourth dimension of sustainable development. Research starting from three dimensions of sustainable development - economic, social, environmental - highlights the difference between the spatial approach and the territorial approach in sustainable development practices. The paper shows that to include in the development approach the morphological (hilly, mountain, plain), functional (metropolitan or non-metropolitan city, cross border region), traditional (port city, financial city, industrial city), government (National strategy, special laws, etc.), governance (formal and not formal network, institutional/ noninstitutional body) aspects, leads to different development results than not including them. This evidence shows to distinguish development practices from sustainable development practices as emerged from recent Territorial Impact Assessment studies in which policies, through the territorialization of the results, guide planning actions: (local) planning actions selected on (general) policy objectives create the conditions for adaptation (about planning) and mitigation (about policies) of human actions on the environment, thus being able to speak of sustainable development.

Territorial Effects of Shared-Living Heritage Regeneration

The paper presents further steps of study started by authors in recent years, as part of the widest international research collaboration, which focuses on shared life and regeneration of abandonment of rural settlements as strategies for the development of sustainable territories. This research aims to understand how the regeneration of ancient community buildings impacts on the sustainable development of the local context. To understand these effects, the research considered four traditional typologies of community buildings, from different cultures: Tulou (China), Cascina (Italy), Hacienda (Mexico), and Marae (New Zealand). Among the tens/hundreds of contemporary regeneration interventions, three contemporary projects per each of these typologies have been selected. To assess the territorial impact of the projects a new approach has been defined using Expert Interviews as the methodology, so as to be able to have an assessment directly by experts in the fields of regenerative projects and sustainable development. The Expert Interviews were held based on a questionnaire that assessed the effects of the projects. For the evaluation of the projects, two categories of indicators have been selected: (1) United Nations SDGs, (2) architectural regeneration indicators generated by the study “The Role of Cultural Heritage in Sustainable Development: Multidimensional Indicators as Decision-Making Tool”, by Francesca Nocca, published in Sustainability (2017, 9, 1882). The research outputs show how the urban-architectural regeneration of these historical typologies can be clearly associated with indications of sustainable development. The results also show that in all four cultures the regeneration of historic buildings provides many benefits to local communities by successfully mixing different income groups and the inclusion of marginalized or vulnerable groups.

The underlying factors of the COVID‐19 spatially uneven spread. Initial evidence from regions in nine EU countries

AbstractThe novel coronavirus COVID‐19 was brought to the global spotlight in early 2020 and has already had significant impacts on daily life, while the effects could last for a long period. However, these impacts appear to have been regionally differentiated, since similar to previous pandemics, geography plays an important role in viruses' diffusion. This paper enriches our knowledge about the initial territorial impact of the pandemic, from January to May 2020, studying the spread of COVID‐19 across 119 regional economies in nine EU countries and explaining its underlying factors. Air quality, demographics, global interconnectedness, urbanization trends, historic trends in health expenditure as well as the policies implemented to mitigate the pandemic were found to have influenced the regionally uneven mortality rate of COVID‐19.

Evaluating the impacts of HSR stations on the creation of firms

Justified on territorial equity criteria, Spain has developed one of the largest high-speed rail (HSR) network in the world. This research evaluates how the opening of a new station affects the number of firms created at provincial level. We estimate differential impacts on firm creation across four different types of activities: service, tourism, knowledge intensive and manufacturing. The use of panel data makes it possible both to test for the dynamic structure in the data and to provide new insights on the territorial impact of HSR effects. Moreover, we develop a methodological procedure to improve the accuracy of small but positive effects. The results point out that being connected to a HSR network may promote firm creation, but this is not always the case. It has a larger effect in the service, tourism and knowledge intensive activities, whereas in the manufacturing sector the impact is almost null. Regarding the territorial impact, we find that the HSR can reinforce the concentration of firm creation in the biggest cities. Additionally, improving short-distance connections can strengthen agglomeration benefits by enlarging metropolitan areas. Finally, HSR would contribute to increasing the level of divergence in terms of firm creation across provinces. Therefore, our work calls for a rethinking of the strategy of basing investment decisions on territorial equity criteria.

Territorial Management and Governance, Regional Public Policies and their Relationship with Tourism. A Case Study of the Azores Autonomous Region

Bearing in mind the growth in regions with socio-economic bases dependent on tourism, studies that analyze spatial planning processes, regional public policies, and their relationship with tourism activities are essential to achieve the so-desired sustainable territorial development. Through case study research methods, territorial impact analysis, and questionnaires to explore the public perceptions, it was possible to design and implement a study regarding this specific regional governance theme on the Azores Autonomous Region (AAR). The research allowed us to learn that the most affected activities by public territorial policies in the AAR from the respondents’ perspective were accommodation (54.7%) and nature (51.9%). Conversely, the less affected were culture (15.1%) and rental/hire services (17.9). Furthermore, it was possible to identify two factors that rule public policies on the growth and development of the Azores: (i) impact in the natural landscape and (ii) suitable production factors.

Análisis territorial del impacto de la Revisión Tarifaria Integral eléctrica de 2016 en el sector residencial argentino: el caso de la ciudad de La Plata, Buenos Aires (2014-2018)

La Revisión Tarifaria Integral (RTI) de electricidad llevada a cabo en 2016 en Argentina ha generado un impacto significativo en la sociedad, resultando en incrementos del orden del 2000% (nominales) y 1000% (reales) en las facturas residenciales (2014 vs. 2018). Esto generó un consecuente incremento en la participación del costo del servicio eléctrico sobre los ingresos familiares, el cual tuvo un impacto diferenciado en los distintos estratos sociales. En efecto, surgen interrogantes acerca de cuál fue el comportamiento energético (incremento/decrecimiento) de los distintos usuarios ante un contexto de fuertes aumentos en el precio de este vector energético. En este sentido, el artículo plantea un análisis territorial de las variaciones del consumo eléctrico residencial entre 2014 y 2018 en la ciudad de La Plata (Buenos Aires-Argentina), en dos escalas de trabajo: la intra-urbana (cinco áreas homogéneas) y la global-urbana (total municipio). Este abordaje permite identificar comportamientos diferenciados y extraer conclusiones respecto del impacto territorial de la Revisión Tarifaria Integral. Los principales resultados demuestran que en la escala global-urbana el consumo fue de -3,33%; mientras que a escala intra-urbana se encuentran variaciones que van desde -12,84% hasta +17,51%, las cuales están directamente asociadas a variables socio-económicas y de consolidación que caracterizan a cada área homogénea.

How does the territory impact on entrepreneurial family embeddedness?

PurposeThis paper aims to explore how territory impacts on entrepreneurial families’ (EFs) embeddedness to unveil the role that territories play on the continuity and development of EFs.Design/methodology/approachTo study complex contexts where subjective realities are analyzed, a constructivist qualitative approach is recommended. Given that, this paper develops a qualitative methodology in which 25 semi-structured interviews were carried out and analyzed based upon the use of ATLAS.ti, following an open-coding approach.FindingsThis paper found out that the territory can condition EFs’ embeddedness in different ways. First, through the cultural embeddedness, the shared territorial understanding of values and norms inherited by the history of the territory. Second, by the political embeddedness, i.e. the power exercised by territorial economic actors and non-market institutions. Third, through the structural embeddedness generated by the territorial social networks and the generation of close relationships and finally, through the so-called cognitive embeddedness, the territorial actors’ representations, interpretations and meanings. These four modes of territorial embeddedness are unfolded in a set of 16 territorial factors that impact on EFs’ embeddedness. Most of the identified factors, 14 out of the 16, are acting mainly over one of the embeddedness modes studied (cultural, political, structural and cognitive), while two of them, because they are operating simultaneously on various modes of embeddedness, have been considered transversal factors.Originality/valueEFs have, to a great extent, been recognized as major generators of positive externalities in the territories in which they are located, and to date, the literature has focused on the impact that firms and family firms have on regional development. However, how the territory conditions the embeddedness of these families, especially how it impacts on the EFs’ territorial embeddedness, remains unexplored. This paper proposes a framework of 16 factors that help to understand the embeddedness dynamics between EFs and territories, serving as a starting point for future research avenues. Additionally, regional policy makers may use it as a guidance to build policy mix that considers these territorial factors to boost EFs’ embeddedness.

Connectivity and hydrological efficiency dynamics at active volcanoes, Mexico

Connectivity is an emergent property that describes how complex topography favors or impedes sediment transfer processes. In active volcanic areas, high connectivity may lead to extremely efficient processes, such as lahars. The aim of the present study is to examine the behavior (activation–deactivation) of sub-basins affected by volcanic and anthropogenic processes by studying the changes in connectivity and hydrological efficiency. Two volcanic zones in Mexico were selected: Volcán de Colima and Popocatépetl volcano, the two most active and dangerous volcanoes in the country. The joint index of connectivity (ICJ) and lateral hydrological efficiency index (LHEI) were calculated for both volcanic areas in basins recently affected by eruptive activity (Volcán de Colima) and co-seismic landslides (Popocatépetl). The analyses enabled the identification of eleven recently activated sub-basins (3.82 km2) at the Volcán de Colima and fifteen (3.77 km2) at the Popocatepetl volcano, as a consequence of natural processes and economic activities. Critical thresholds indicating the percentage area of land cover/use at which a sub-basin reaches high or very high LHEI values and the percentage of land cover/use change required for a sub-basin to modify its behavior (activation–deactivation) were identified using classification trees. The holistic capacity of the concepts of connectivity and hydrological efficiency permits analyzing the spatiotemporal variations of sediment transport based on the interactions between the hydrogeomorphological dynamics of volcanic processes and the territorial impact of socio-economical activities. Through this approach, new active areas have been identified in both volcanoes; the knowledge of the processes that occurred in these areas represents a key factor for hazard and risk assessment for the population in the near future.

Assessment of territorial impact of industrial mercury pollution and proposal for its solution

The mercury electrolysis plant in Usolye Sibirskoye, which was decommissioned in 1998, is a source of mercury pollution, since measures to prevent mercury pollution of the environment were not implemented after its closure. On the territory of the plant, mercury remained in building structures, in sludge, in soils, in loose sediments. All of them are deposited sources of metallic mercury, from where it continues to spread in the air, soils and groundwater. In order to choose the best method to eliminate the source of mercury pollution, it is necessary to conduct an assessment of the impact on all elements of the environment and to identify the places with the highest mercury contamination. In addition, to propose environmental protection measures those are aimed at eliminating the main sources of metallic mercury release to the environment from the decommissioned mercury electrolysis plant. During the environmental impact assessment of the investigated object, the following tasks were performed: an assessment of the existing environmental situation and the state of the natural environment was carried out; alternative scenarios for achieving the planned activity were considered, with a justification for choosing the best one.

Territorial Impact Assessment – European context and the case of Czechia

Territorial Impact Assessment – European context and the case of Czechia

Влияние экологической ситуации территории на устойчивое развитие региона (на примере Приволжского федерального округа)

Влияние экологической ситуации территории на устойчивое развитие региона (на примере Приволжского федерального округа)

CFTI5Med, the new release of the catalogue of strong earthquakes in Italy and in the Mediterranean area

A key element for assessing seismic hazard and risk is the availability of a comprehensive dataset on past earthquakes. Here we present the rationale, structure and contents of CFTI5Med (https://doi.org/10.6092/ingv.it-cfti5), the 2018 version of the Catalogue of Strong Earthquakes in Italy: a large multidisciplinary effort including historians, seismologists and geologists. It was conceived in 1989, following the inception of GIS technology, and first published in 1995 to offer a full account of Italy’s strongest earthquakes, of their territorial impact and associated social and economic upheaval. Subsequent versions (1997, 2000, 2007) entailed a fine tuning of research methodologies, included additional research on Italian earthquakes, and were extended to large earthquakes of the Mediterranean area. CFTI5Med comprised an opportunity to streamline the structure of the Catalogue database and propose a renovated user interface. The new front-end (1) grants an easier, intuitive access to the data, including earthquake effects on the environment, and (2) allows all data to be displayed jointly with relevant topographic, geological and seismological overlays published as web services.

La legislación agraria posrevolucionaria y su impacto territorial. Ejido y caña en el estado de Veracruz (1917- 1940)

Este trabajo busca demostrar que la legislación agraria ha tenido interpretaciones diversas y, en consecuencia, un impacto territorial diferenciado. Para tal fin, se estudió la evolución de la legislación relativa al sector cañero azucarero y su aplicación en el caso de dos ingenios veracruzanos. El trabajo evidencia que los territorios cañeros han sido poco afectados por el repartimiento agrario gracias a la protección legal. Sin embargo, la aplicación de la ley fue diferente en San Francisco y en Tuzamapan y evolucionó a lo largo de 1917-1940. El texto constituye una aportación para entender la situación específica de los complejos cañeroazucareros en el contexto de la reforma agraria. Se evidencia el vínculo indefectible entre agricultura e industria y las estrategias adoptadas para evitar la disolución del campo cañero.

Spatial Planning, Territorial Development, and Territorial Impact Assessment

This article debates the possibilities and advantages of using territorial impact assessment (TIA) policy evaluation methodologies to assess the implementation of spatial planning instruments. It builds on existing literature to define key analytical goals, dimensions, and respective components to monitor and evaluate the implementation of spatial plans, at all territorial levels, to be used as a TIA evaluation matrix. It concludes that, despite the inherent complexity associated with the process of evaluating spatial planning processes, there are manifest advantages to using TIA tools to evaluate them, mostly at the ex post phase.

Socio-economic impact of photovoltaic park: The Giurgiu County rural area, Romania

The paper aims to analyse the socio-economic territorial impact of photovoltaic parks in the rural area of Giurgiu County. The analysis valorises two types of data: the statistical information on the local socio-economic features provided by the National Institute of Statistics and the Giurgiu County Statistics Office, and the specific information about the photovoltaic parks revealed by the interviews applied to the local authorities during field investigation. The case-studies discussed in this paper reflect the socio-economic effects of building and operating the six photovoltaic parks as in the three rural local administrative units – LAU2: Izvoarele, Stăneşti and Malu. This study emphasizes four types of the socio-economic effects of investment in a photovoltaic project on: local rural economy, land use changes, local investments, budget and local labour market.