Sustainable planning? First results in land uptakes in rural, natural and protected areas: the Lombardia case study (Italy)

In Italy, the general lack of up-to-date information on land use/land cover changes is further hampered by the scarcity of monitoring systems for planning and environmental policies. More than putting Italy in an unfavourable position among its international partners, it reveals just how little attention is paid to a theme so important for guiding planning towards a more sustainable approach. Despite this anomalous situation, remedial steps are being taken. New geographic data are slowly becoming available, albeit for limited areas and over short-time intervals. This is the case of the recent raster land cover database, produced in 2005, by the Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione Ambientale (ARPA) of the Lombardia Region (Italy). The database was derived from Landsat-Thematic Mapper satellite images and covers the years 1999 and 2004. In this study, the above-mentioned database was used to assess land cover changes between 1999 and 2004. Transition matrices were generated to highlight changes and analyses were carried out to verify which land cover classes were subject to the major changes of becoming urban areas. We consider the obtained results of outstanding importance, especially in Italy, as they might redirect planning strategies and environmental policies (from local to regional level) towards more sustainable approaches. They can also help reveal the weaknesses and successful strategies and strengthen the role of land use/land cover monitoring for preliminary impact assessment.