The use of territorial information systems to evaluate urban planning decisions in transformation areas: The case for Parco della Valle del Lambro in Lombardy, Italy

Abstract

The construction of the territorial information systems, provided by the recent law for territorial governance of Lombardy (the most industrious Northern Italian region), has become an essential procedure to evaluate of environmental sustainability of urban planning. This procedure is necessary for the handing of descriptive and relevant data that is needed to represent the environmental complexity of a region. In addition, territorial information systems allow for the composition of useful indicators to identify the intrinsic peculiarity of a territory (as in our area application, Parco della Valle del Lambro, 35 municipalities on a North-South axis of 25 km, extending across 4,081 hectares). The proposed case for the Lambro Valley and the related Strategic Environmental Assessment represents a positive example of how territorial governance and land use is often conflict.