Land use and land cover change (LULCC) dynamics have been particularly strong in the Mediterranean region, due to its historical development and to agro-pedoclimatic conditions favorable to human ...settlement. This area has undergone in the 1950s and the 1980s intense urbanization processes that has followed different trajectories. Urban expansion commonly occurs at the expense of agricultural land, leading to the fragmentation of natural areas and conflicts over access to land resources. These dynamics mainly concern the fringe between urban and agricultural land, e.g. the peri-urban areas usually included within functional urban regions. Here, to identify common features of LULCC in Western Mediterranean urban regions, we investigated two main features: direct changes due to urbanization and indirect changes affecting non-artificial land uses. We compared LULCC dynamics in 6 case studies from the north and south of the Western Mediterranean region: the urban regions of Montpellier and Avignon (France), Pisa (Italy), Madrid (Spain), Meknes (Morocco), and Constantine (Algeria), using a 30-year multitemporal spatial analysis (1980–2010). Two series of Landsat TM images were acquired for each case study and land cover data were analyzed both for dynamics and for land patterns, using landscape and class metrics. We found no significant north-south differences in LULCC dynamics between the investigated Western Mediterranean urban regions. Differences are more pronounced between small–medium cities and large metropolitan areas in type of urban diffusion, which is more sprawled in small–medium cities and more compact in large metropolitan areas. Rather, differences occur in LULCC not directly affected by urbanization, since in Northern Mediterranean urban regions afforestation and abandonment of agricultural areas are prevalent and closer to the urban areas, whereas transformation of natural areas into agricultural ones occurs mainly in Southern Mediterranean urban regions at a similar distance from urban areas than it happens for afforested or abandoned areas. In attempting for the first time to assess LULCC in these Mediterranean urban regions, we provide a preliminary comprehensive analysis that can contribute to the active LULCC research in the Mediterranean basin and that can be easily applied to other Mediterranean urban regions.
•LULCC of 6 Mediterranean urban regions were compared.•No significant north-south differences in urbanization were found.•Differences appeared for urban growths patterns in metropolitan and medium cities.•Agricultural abandonment occurs nearest to urban areas in the northern regions.
A partir du repérage de l'ensemble des contours proposés et la collected'informations produites par différentes sources, une large sélection des zonesd'activités a pu être établie et les informations ...ont été croisées avec des bases dedonnées non spatiales, susceptibles de renseigner la qualité de la zone, sa densité,sa vocation...
A partir du repérage de l'ensemble des contours proposés et la collected'informations produites par différentes sources, une large sélection des zonesd'activités a pu être établie et les informations ...ont été croisées avec des bases dedonnées non spatiales, susceptibles de renseigner la qualité de la zone, sa densité,sa vocation...
The main objective of the CLAIM Project is to provide the knowledge base to support an effective CAP policy design in the direction of improved landscape management, particularly providing insights ...into the ability of landscape to contribute to the production of added value for society in rural areas.The CLAIM knowledge platform (KP) represents the interface between the research findings and policy-making contributing to further knowledge on the cause-effect relationships between landscape policy and management and the appearance of landscape (structure and elements) as well as the related ecosystem functionalities to the actual provision of ecosystem services, values and their application for regional competitiveness and social welfare.The theoretical framework of cause-effect-linkages is substantiated by empirical evidence from 25 individual research studies gathered in 9 different regions in the EU and Turkey.The specific challenge of the CLAIM-KP is the integrated presentation of thematically and methodologically heterogenic knowledge in one knowledge platform to enhance policy support in the field of agri-environmental and landscape management.The main addressee of the CLAIM-KP are: European policy maker in the fields of agri-environmental and landscape management policy and rural development, national and regional decision-makers at programming level as well as regional and local stakeholder and interest groups, who are involved in any kind of governance processes within landscape and rural development.The main output of the CLAIM-KP is qualitative knowledge about theoretical knowledge, but also information on empirical finding, which can be of qualitative and quantitative nature.The CLAIM-KP is accessible online under the following internet address http://project2.zalf.de/claimknowledgeplatform
The main objective of the CLAIM Project is to provide the knowledge base to support an effective CAP policy design in the direction of improved landscape management, particularly providing insights ...into the ability of landscape to contribute to the production of added value for society in rural areas.The CLAIM knowledge platform (KP) represents the interface between the research findings and policy-making contributing to further knowledge on the cause-effect relationships between landscape policy and management and the appearance of landscape (structure and elements) as well as the related ecosystem functionalities to the actual provision of ecosystem services, values and their application for regional competitiveness and social welfare.The theoretical framework of cause-effect-linkages is substantiated by empirical evidence from 25 individual research studies gathered in 9 different regions in the EU and Turkey.The specific challenge of the CLAIM-KP is the integrated presentation of thematically and methodologically heterogenic knowledge in one knowledge platform to enhance policy support in the field of agri-environmental and landscape management.The main addressee of the CLAIM-KP are: European policy maker in the fields of agri-environmental and landscape management policy and rural development, national and regional decision-makers at programming level as well as regional and local stakeholder and interest groups, who are involved in any kind of governance processes within landscape and rural development.The main output of the CLAIM-KP is qualitative knowledge about theoretical knowledge, but also information on empirical finding, which can be of qualitative and quantitative nature.The CLAIM-KP is accessible online under the following internet address http://project2.zalf.de/claimknowledgeplatform
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