Being a relatively less known driver of land vulnerability to degradation in Southern Europe,
the net impact of urban expansion on land quality depletion requires a comparative …

This paper describes the state of the art of urbanization in Italian coastal areas in 2021, both
at national and regional level. Moreover, we focused on six coastal municipalities, aiming to …

Southern Europe is a hotspot for desertification risk because of the intimate impact of soil
deterioration, landscape transformations, rising human pressure, and climate change. In this …

Coastal wetlands face the growing problem of altered fire regimes that compromise
ecosystem structures and functions, as well as the ecosystem services from which society …

Soil erosion is one of the most widespread soil degradation phenomena worldwide.
Mediterranean landscapes, due to some peculiar characteristics, such as fragility of soils …

The couple rapid urbanization and policy failure in controlling urban expansion was
sometimes associated to soil and land degradation phenomena in both developing and …

Polycentric development is one of the fundamental components of the European Spatial
Planning and Development (ESPD) strategy and substantiates the legitimacy of a …

The spatial mismatch between population growth and settlement expansion is at the base of
current models of urban growth. Empirical evidence is increasingly required to inform …

Land abandonment is among the most complex la nd use change processes driven by a
multiplicity of anthropogenic and natural factors, such as agricultural over-exploitation …

Natura 2000 is the largest coordinated network of protected areas in the world, which has
been established to preserve rare habitats and threatened species at the European …