Giulio Senes
Institute of Agricultural Engineering, University of Milan, via G. Celoria 2, 20133 Milan, tel (+39-2) 23691476, fax (+39-2) 23691499, Giulio.Senes@unimi.it

Alessandro Toccolini
Institute of Agricultural Engineering, University of Milan, via G. Celoria 2, 20133 Milan, tel (+39-2) 23691475, fax (+39-2) 23691499, Alessandro.Toccolini@unimi.it

Abstract

The rural landscape planning and management needs an holistic approach in order to achieve the new functions of the countryside: not only a sustainable agricultural production, but also recreation, landscape and environmental protection, and in general a better utilisation of the natural resources.
In this sense, we need methods and techniques useful to asses and know the landscape resources, to determine planning strategies for different levels (from the national, regional or local planning scale to the site design scale), to verify the impact and the level of sustainability of the chosen planning strategies.
From this point of view, the GIS technology is a very well known powerful tool.
Besides, the rural landscape represents, specially in urbanised areas (i.e. metropolitan region of Milan, Italy), the core of the "system of green areas" and allows the connection with the urban green spaces. In this sense, the rural landscape, characterised by the presence of rivers and canals (natural or man made for irrigation), of rural roads network, of rural buildings with high historic and architectural value, can be preserved and valorised by creating a greenway network.
The greenway concept, developed in the United States by important landscape planners as Little, Fabos and Zube among others, has been adopted by the U.S. President’s Commission on American Outdoors (1987) that recommend the creation of a "giant circulation system based on a living network of greenways", and is becoming now an international movement.
The greenways network, based on the development of connected linear green spaces, allows a multi-function planning of rural landscape – ecological, recreational and historic-cultural – in respect of the wider concept of sustainable development.
In this paper, are shown some new planning methods for rural areas (EPP – Environmental Preconditions Plan – method) based on the GIS technology, and are presented the greenway concept as a new possibility for a sustainable development of the rural areas.

GIS FOR RURAL LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT

The issue of land use knowledge and of the guidelines for managing the processes that take place throughout the landscape has turned out to be one of the hottest topics of the last few decades, and is being investigated with different methods and approaches, depending on the disciplines involved.
In this connection, one interesting aspect relates to the different meanings ascribed to the land use organisation processes by the socio-economic disciplines, which typically refer to "landscape programming" (thus emphasising the identification of suitable operational policies) as opposed to the urban-environmental ones, which refer to "landscape planning" (the emphasis being on the assessment of the available physical resources and on the identification of the most suitable development sites).
The differences between disciplines imply, furthermore, a different assessment of the time variable with respect to the possible effects of the proposed courses of action (generally covering a longer time span in physical planning).
These sectorial approaches, albeit vitally important and typifying every specific discipline, are by now displaying obvious shortcomings due both to the increasing degree of complexity and interrelation of landscape-related phenomena and to the necessity of viewing the topic in a systemic perspective.
This statement applies in particular to the phenomena that take place in a rural setting, for here the interrelations with the subsystems located upstream and downstream (technologies and production inputs for agriculture on the one hand, and the food processing and preservation industry on the other) are closer and, more importantly, because the agricultural-forestry system is often confronted with the need to implement production-related decisions conditioned by market pressures and directives issued by far-removed decision-making agencies (the World Trade Organisation, the EU, etc.) in areas with specific features and constraints.
Said specificity calls for a holistic problem-solving approach, which inherently implies suitable methods and techniques for:

• investigating and analysing the relevant phenomena so as to provide a brief, yet exhaustive picture of such phenomena, that can be continuously updated;
• pinpointing the planning and project options that fit in best with the different levels in land use management (strategic-national, implementional-regional, zoning-local, project-site);
• determining the impact of the selected courses of action on the environment and on the socio-economic context, as well as monitoring and managing such courses of action over time.

If the necessity is real, then the GISs (Geographical Information Systems) may be the key-tool to the implementation of an organic operational and management policy for the agricultural-woodland systems with respect to the different land-use governing administration levels involved.
This appears to be particularly relevant, furthermore, in view of the need to plan resource deployment most carefully, so as to be able to assess the effects (including long-term ones) of the implemented zoning and production decisions on land use conditions and on the environment. Otherwise put, it is a matter of testing the "sustainability" of the decisions themselves. This term, which has suddenly become so popular in the context of scientific debate, emphasises the critical importance of developing land use/landscape development methods that will not jeopardise the future generations’ ability to fulfil their needs.
The implementation of a far-sighted land-use planning process implies, therefore, the use of suitable methodological approaches supported by suitable technological tools. On the one hand, the latter are elicited by the new methods (based on the application of parametric indicators and the overlay mapping techniques for combining different thematic layers) (Fabos, 1992), on the other they in turn provide an opportunity for developing innovative methods, by making their application possible (a case in point is represented by the potential made available by remote sensing techniques).
In this connection, the evidence seems to point to the fact that, while the 1970s focused on agricultural production issues and on the problems ensuing from the scarcity of resources (this applies in particular to energy sources), the 1980s were marked by the rediscovery of environmentalist values throughout the population, a process paralleled by the blossoming of planning methods based on a new awareness of the environment. It is no mere chance, in fact, that " landscape ecology" methods – developed in some works produced in the post-war years by masters such as McHarg (1969), the seeds of which can be traced back to some studies conducted in the 1950s (Troll, 1950) – should have become widespread only in recent years. Another point that deserved consideration, as an example of how new technologies may influence or even suggest new methodological ideas, is that an awareness of the ecological relevance of landscape forms seems to have sprung from a review of the first aerial photographs (Zonneveld, 1990).
The unchallenged pre-eminence of the resource assessment methods based on parametric indicators, along with the related techniques for combining different thematic maps (overlay process), has by now (1990s) become both generalised and effectively operational in terms of feeding new inputs to the planning process through the use of information technology systems. In this context, the terms "holistic" and "systemic" take on a very real meaning, in that the decision-making agencies in charge of land use and, more generally, resource management at the different administrative levels can rely on a clear, readily understandable tool for choosing among the available uses of resources which, by their very nature, are often finite and non-renewable, if not at an exceedingly high cost for the community.
With reference to the foregoing, the following section is devoted to an outline of the EPP (Environmental Preconditions Plan) method, which has been conceived and developed for application through the GIS.

THE EPP (ENVIRONMENTAL PRECONDITIONS PLAN) METHOD

The EPP method derives from the research carried out at the GIS/CAD Laboratory for Environmental Planning and Design of the Institute of Agricultural Engineering of the University of Milan (Italy) into the validation of diverse methodological approaches (on the various territorial scales) to the definition of the directions to be taken in rural land use planning processes and represents a synthesis of this research.
The method was born out of the recognition that the so-called "parametric" methods (ie. METLAND, UET, etc.), introduced over the last two decades, offer planners the opportunity to carry out in-depth analyses of the environmental resources present and consequently to define a more "rational" use for them. Parallel to this trend, moreover, there has been a general consolidation of GIS technology that allows such methods to be applied with relative ease and at reasonable costs.
The EPP method represents an attempt to define an instrument capable of providing results through a transparent procedure that is relatively easy to comprehend, that can be computerised and that is flexible, that is to say it is capable of automatically providing new results with each variation in, or addition to, the input priorities. The flow diagram of the method is represented in Figure 1.

The method involves an initial phase of analysis, and subsequent evaluation, of the elements that characterise the territory and that may condition its evolution. To this end, the method takes into consideration both the elements that are part of the "natural component" and those that belong to the anthropic component, in that man and the environment in which he lives and carries out his activities are closely linked and evolve in a dynamic fashion.
These elements include:Territorial resources (e.g. water resources, agricultural productivity, ecological stability, the presence of elements of particular visual quality etc.), the presence or absence of which represents a stimulus or a restriction for development.Environmental risks (e.g. pollution, flooding, earthquakes etc.) that represent obstacles to the eventual anthropic development of the territory.Elements that condition development linked to both the anthropic and environmental components. These include the current land use, the presence of transport and technological infrastructures that influence the costs of development, the physical, topographical and climatic characteristics of the area and the presence of features with aesthetic-visual qualities that represent elements of attraction. Then there are factors such as the existence of land use plans and eventual financial or fiscal incentives.

Fig. 1 - Conceptual framework of the EPP method

The result of this initial phase represents an overall evaluation of the territorial situation. The second phase involves relating all the factors previously considered to the different kinds of development possible in the area. In other words, this means evaluating the suitability of the environment for the proposed development through the drafting of appropriate "relational diagrams" (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 - Relational diagram for evaluating the environmental suitability for different developments (scheme used for the application to the municipality of Lodi in Italy)

In these diagrams the different types of activity are placed in relation to the resources, the risks and the elements that condition development. The following elements may emerge:

• Essential elements, the absence of which negates any possibility of development.
• Useful elements, the presence of which favours a possible development that is not, on the other hand, necessarily compromised by their absence.
• Indifferent elements, the presence of which have no influence on development.

By processing and aggregating the results obtained from each diagram proposed, areas of differing suitability for development can be highlighted and therefore the most suitable in terms of the availability of resources, the presence of elements that condition the orientation of development and the absence of risks can be identified. The end result is a land suitability map for each type of development under consideration.
A practical example of a map of zones potentially suitable for the development of urban and suburban green areas can be seen in Figure 3. In this case the method was applied to the municipality of Lodi in Italy.
Prior to the definition of the zoning expressed by the preconditions, the third phase involves an evaluation of the direct and indirect transformations to which the territory may be subjected as a consequence of development, that is to say the potential side effects that an anthropic intervention may have on the components of the overall environmental system. The gravity of such "environmental risks" depends on the severity of the intervention and the characteristics of the territory affected (in particular its vulnerability, its importance to the man-environment system and its size).

Fig. 3 - Zones potentially suitable for the development of urban and suburban green areas

In order to carry out an evaluation of the negative effects of the various types of development on the environment it is necessary to make a selection from amongst the multiple effects possible and identify those which translate into a significant changes in terms of appreciable increases in risks to the health and well-being of the community and the alteration of the resources involved that may compromise their future exploitation.
The EPP method evaluates the various effects caused by the development of human activities in relation to the variable of duration, intensity and amplitude. It should be pointed out that this analysis depends on the supposition that each activity is carried out with the best production and managerial technology available while respecting the equilibrium between man and the environment in which he lives.
The overall effect of a certain activity on a certain territorial component is obtained by taking an overall view of its gravity in terms of duration, intensity and amplitude. As the extent of the negative effect increases, the possibility of an area being suitable for the localisation of the development in question diminishes.
Developments that provoke permanent, significant and widespread alterations have a greater overall negative effect than an anthropic activity that causes temporary, insignificant and localised negative alterations.
In order to identify the optimum location within a given area for various kinds of development, the methodology involves successive filtering procedures: the first relational diagrams identify the most suitable areas in terms of the availability of resources, the absence of risks and the presence of elements that condition the various types of development. Subsequent relational diagrams (negative side effects/human activity) further filter the areas identified previously and highlight those in which the various developments have minimal effects and therefore provoke minor alterations of the resources present.
The result of the application of the EPP method is represented by the Environmental Preconditions Plan in which it is possible to identify the most suitable location for each development under consideration.

Figure 4 shows the areas suitable for the establishment of urban and suburban green areas in the municipality of Lodi.
Clearly, a characteristic of the method is that it is able to assign different priorities to the use of resources (depending on economic and social factors), and therefore to be flexible in relation to the selection of priorities imposed as the geographical and/or social context changes. What is important is that the method retains a procedural transparency.

Fig. 4 - Areas suitable for the establishment of urban and suburban green areas in the municipality of Lodi.

THE GREENWAYS MOVEMENT

Over the last few years, especially in highly urbanised areas, the rural landscape has acquired growing importance within the more general concept of the "greenways system", due both to its function in protecting extensive open spaces against urbanisation and to the role played by its outer fringe in ensuring contact and integration with the urban landscape.
The green system organisation models implemented in metropolitan contexts in past years, such green-belts and the so-called green-web, ascribe a basic function to agricultural areas; in this connection, an interesting experimental project was conducted also in Italy by the Lombardia Regional Authority, with the establishment of an agricultural park along the metropolitan belt (South Milan Park), designed to safeguard and enhance the rural landscape and its relevant productive, recreational, environmental protection and landscape preservation functions.
In addition, the rural landscape, thanks to the presence of characteristic elements, such as the natural waterways and the irrigation system (fig.5), the rural roads network, the existence of rural buildings of major historical and architectural significance, the lines of trees and hedges, stands out as an essential form of land use, an asset which is to be cherished and enhanced in a sustainable development perspective.

Fig.5 - Province of Milan, hydrographic network (canals data source: Lombardia Region)

In this context, the establishment of a greenways system may prove to be an effective strategy. In the United States, the "greenways" concept has aroused a great deal of interest among the public at large following the publication of a paper by the President’s Commission on American Outdoors (1987), which looks forward to the establishment of a "giant circulation system based on a living network of greenways"; the concept itself has gained such wholehearted support among outstanding landscape planners (Little, Fabos, Zube) that it has by now become an out-and-out movement. The greenways – linear green areas – are designed to fulfil a number of functions (in particular, ecological, recreational, historical-cultural and educational ones) and are to be viewed against the background of sustainable landscape planning. In particular, greenways are characterised by the following basic aspects:

• the space configuration is essentially linear, the concept of movement is inherent in the greenways model and sets it apart from other models of organisation developed for the green-area system. Moreover, greenways play a role in connecting green areas to one another, thus establishing a synergic link among the existing landscape resources. In this way the "non-linear" green areas become a source of additional benefits rather than facilities of lesser importance;
• greenways fulfil a number of functions: ecological, recreational, educational and historical-cultural ones.
  The ecological function is performed mostly by bio-corridors, involving natural elements such as river ways and coastal belts, where the conservation of the natural habitat and the protection of the relevant species is of major importance.
  The recreational (or leisure-related) function is performed by a number of linear elements, such as country roads or routes cutting across woodland, streets running along natural and artificial waterways (hauling canals) (fig.6), abandoned railway lines, which provide the facility for crossing and connecting outstanding areas both in terms of their visual beauty and in view of the special significance of the relevant animal and vegetable species; the presence of sites of historical and cultural relevance (often located along the waterways which in the past acted as major communication routes) emphasises the cultural and educational role of greenways.

Fig. 6 - Example of greenway along an irrigation-transportation canal (Naviglio Grande) (Photo by A. Toccolini)

The main feature of such greenways is to pursue multiple goals, even though a greenway may be designed to fulfil a prevailing, characterising function, depending both on the available resources and on the specific targets to be attained (which in turn depend on the users’ requirements). Also, greenways can be differentiated according to their respective frames of reference and, therefore, according to their scale (local, national and supranational) (fig.7).

Fig. 7 - River Greenways classification based on areal scale and associated attributes (from J. Ahern, 1995)

• greenways, as a landscape planning and management tool, are consistent with the concept of sustainable development, for not only do they represent an effective means for ensuring the conservation of natural resources, but they also seek to achieve a balance between resource utilization, as dictated by the existing development requirements, and the protection of said resources. In particular, greenways are to be viewed as a "strategic landscape planning concept based on the particular advantages of linked linear systems" (J. Ahern, 1995). Figure 8 (by the same author) shows some "greenways planning strategies" ranging from the mere protection and conservation of resources (A and B) to more complex strategies aimed at implementing a sustainable landscape planning process as well as an effective deployment of the existing resources (C and D).

The implementation of a greenways system is a highly complex process, which involves several steps, including:

• the definition of a geographical information system covering a number of basic aspects (hydrography, roads network, altimetry, land use, administrative boundaries) and specific areas of investigation (protected areas, hydrogeological hazards, soil characteristics, vegetation, locations of historical and architectural significances etc.);
• an analysis and assessment of the agricultural and environmental resources, such as agricultural productivity, visual quality, ecological stability, water supply, woodland productivity etc.;
• the identification of specific areas suited to the various types of development and of areas which, by fulfilling different functions, may provide a suitable basis for structuring a greenways system;
• the implementation of specific greenways projects with reference to the legal aspect too;
• the effective management of the greenways network in order to preserve and sustain the implemented system; this aspect relates to routine problems such as the maintenance of the road network, of the parking areas and the management of plant and equipment (notice boards, road signs, lighting systems, waste disposal bins). On the other hand, such management includes all the communicational aspects designed to enhance the recreational and tourism-related functions of the system: in this connection, the problem of supplying users with proper information proves crucial (information concerning the routes, the sites of special interest, the regulations governing access, the accommodation facilities).

Fig 8 - Greenways planning strategies (elaboration from J. Ahern, 1995)

Ultimately, the GISs seem to be capable of making an essential contribution toward the acquisition of basic data, the implementation of data-processing procedures, the interrogation and visualisation of the geographical-spatial and descriptive elements involved in the greenways network and the management of the system as a whole. Finally, as far as communication and information to prospective users is concerned, the employment of the GISs through the Internet web offers considerable potential opportunities.

REFERENCES

J. Ahern, "Greenways as a planning strategy" in Greenways, a beginning of an international movement - J. Fabos, J. Ahern (eds.), Elsevier, 1995, pp. 131-155

J. Fabos et al., Improved Land Use Decision - Making in Rural Communities: Gis in the 1990s, Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station Research Bullettin n. 739, 1992.

J. Fabos, "Introduction and overview: the greenway movement, uses and potentials of greenways", in Greenways, a beginning of an international movement - J. Fabos, J. Ahern (eds.), Elsevier, 1995, pp. 1-13

P.F. Fisher, R.E. Lindenberg, "On distinction among Cartography, Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems", Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, n. 55, 1989, pp. 1431-1434.

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C.E. Little., Greenways for America, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1990

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E.M. Sorensen, "Agricultural changes/changing agriculture - Some Danish experiences and perspectives of multifunctional rural management", in XX International Congress, Melbourne, Australia, 5-12 march 1994.

A.Toccolini (a cura di), Analisi e pianificazione dei sistemi agricolo-forestali mediante GIS, Franco Angeli, Milano, 1998

A.Toccolini, G. Senes, "The EPP method (Environmental Precondition Plan) for sustainable rural land use planning, Atti del 13^th International Congress on Agricultural Engineering, Rabat (Marocco) 2-6 febbraio 1998.

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I.S. Zonneveld, R.T.T. Forman, Changing Landscapes: an ecological perspective, Springer Verlag, New York 1990.

E.H. Zube, "Greenways and the US National Park System", in Greenways, a beginning of an international movement - J. Fabos, J. Ahern (eds.), Elsevier, 1995, pp. 17-25