210 / 1029
Marinosci et al./
Qualità dell’ambiente urbano – XI Rapporto (2015)
ISPRA Stato dell’Ambiente 63/15 pagg. 156 – 173
157
Abstract
The knowledge of the different forms of urbanization and type of settlements are key
element of sustainability and urban resilience. The processes of diffusion, urban
sprawl and fragmentation continue to produce a consequent loss of boundaries
between urban and rural land (Guess, 1990, 2009; Simon, 2008). Consumption of
natural resources and threatening of land quality take place through the creation of
small-medium sized urban centers outside of the major metropolitan, through the
growth of dispersed settlements in marginal areas around the centers, through low-
density settlement in a continuum that cancels the boundaries between urban and
rural land, through landscape fragmentation and the lack of identity of the
settlements scattered and without cohesion. The environmental and social effects of
those phenomena are relevant in terms of environmental quality, integrity of the
landscape and the consumption of natural resources. The magnitude of these effects
depends strongly on how transformation is realized. In Europe and in Italy, the
majority of expansion of the sealed areas is in urban and peri-urban fringe of many
major cities, as a mixture of different types of land use, driving to the greater
increase in the land take in this fringe areas and suburban landscapes (EEA, 2006;
ISPRA, 2015). Is known that dispersed and fragmented urbanization is associated
with widespread expansion of public and private costs associated with mobility and
costs of primary and secondary urbanization. Fragmentation produces, finally, a
strong reduction in the quality of the overall biodiversity, in terms of residual capacity
of connection of ecosystems and the availability of ecosystem services in the
territorial units.
Keywords
Urban fringe, Dispersion, Diffusion