Ecosystem services in strategic environmental assessment: A case study of an urban development plan in Gallipoli city

Abstract

The growth of urban populations leads to cities and their suburbs to spread, expand, and replace agricultural and natural lands. Indeed, urbanization brings to land-use change, altering the relationship between human societies and environmental resources with loss of important natural and rural ecosystem goods and services. In urban areas, the elements that provide ecosystem services are defined as ‘green infrastructure’. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is an appraisal process introduced in the EU regulation with Directive 2001/42/CE to assess the effect of the Plans and Programmes on the environment and human well-being. An important part of SEA processes is represented by the analysis of different scenarios of the urban development with mitigation measures: actions must be implemented in order to avoid and reduce the expected adverse environmental impacts. Currently, among these measures, few or none takes into consideration the assessment of ecosystem services, and therefore, the concept of ecosystem services in urban planning is purely conceptual than practical. Starting from a case study in the Gallipoli municipality, South Italy, we propose a methodological analysis to evaluate ecosystem services in a SEA process. In particular, we have analyzed different urban scenarios in synergy with the mitigation measures proposed. The results show a decrease in ecosystem services passing from the current agricultural land use to an urban development forecast with the enhancement of ecosystem services if we apply specific mitigation actions to the original urban plan. Authors believe that a correct and profitable assessment of ecosystem services in SEA strategy allows passing from an approach mainly oriented towards a conservation purpose to an approach aimed also to the improvement of ecosystem services within the territory transformation processes. In accordance with the spontaneous vegetation and the typical crops of the area, the mitigation measures developed are mainly focalized on green infrastructures that can increase the ecological functions.