1,721,028 research outputs found
Binari Verdi : un marchio di qualità per valorizzare come greenways le ferrovie abbandonate
Full text linkIn Italy there are over 7,000 km of abandoned railways, which constitute a privileged infrastructure for the development of greenways. About 800 km have already been reused, but often the projects have been limited only to the creation of cycle paths of local interest, due to the lack of an overview.
In order to enhance the uniqueness of these routes and promote their attractiveness, the Italian Greenways Association and the Italian Touring Club have created a specific brand called "Binari Verdi", to identify the greenways built along disused rail-ways that have excellent technical and environmental characteristics, thus promoting a new tourism product able to bring im-portant benefits to the territories crossed
Reducing land take and preserving land quality : a methodology for the application of the Lombardy Regional Law
No full textGreenways planning in Italy : the Lambro river Valley Greenways System
No full textThe greenways movement in Europe developed differently to its counterpart in the USA, influenced by geographical, economic
and cultural differences as well as differences in social and urban development.
Europe has seen a discontinuous and fragmented process, diversified in the various countries. The explosion of the greenway
concept in Europe is a very recent phenomenon: the European Greenways Association and the Italian Greenways Association
both date back only as far as 1998. Clearly, before this date the European countries did see a degree of activity both cultural and
operational, but it is equally clear that there was a lack of commonality. Specifically, greenway planning in Italy while on the
one hand work has been underway on green trails for many years, on the other there is a clear lack of methodology that allows
for the planning of a broader network.
This paper has two objectives; firstly to define a methodology useful for greenways planning in Italy at regional level, and
secondly, to demonstrate the application of this methodology to a case study.
The methodology adopted derives from an approach to planning inspired principally by the work of Ian McHarg and Julius
Fabos and already applied by the authors to protected areas in Italy. The methodology is structured in four phases: analysis of the
landscape resources, the existing green trail and historical route networks; assessment of each element; composite assessment;
and definition of the Greenways Plan.
A case study for the Lambro River Valley Park is used to illustrate the methodology proposed. The park comprises the
municipalities situated along the Lambro River to the north of Milan. This is densely inhabited land and features multiple human
activities located within a context conserving residual elements of naturalistic, landscape and historical–cultural interest. The
application of the methodology to the Lambro River Valley Park allowed the development of a greenways network incorporating
the existing network of green trails: 80% of the network is, in fact, already in place. The methodology also proved to be useful in
the definition of a network dedicated to non-motorized traffic capable of connecting the numerous urban centres with the many
resources present in the area
The Seniors' outdoor survey : an observational tool for assessing outdoor environments at long-term care settings
No full textPurpose of the Study: To describe the development and psychometric testing of the Seniors’ Outdoor Survey (SOS), an instrument for evaluating how well the outdoor space in a long-term care setting supports the preferences and outdoor usage of residents.
Design and Methods: Content validity of the main SOS items initially was based on relevant literature and preliminary studies in diverse long-term care settings. After conducting a multiregional pilot study with 152 outdoor spaces at 68 assisted living facilities, the instrument was substantially revised and tested for interrater and test–retest reliability with 22 outdoor spaces at 12 long-term care settings, using 2 raters. Validity was examined using content analysis of resident survey responses (N = 1,128) from the multiregional study and specific item validation by subject matter experts (N = 53).
Results: The final instrument contains 60 ratable items organized in 5 domains: access to nature (14 items), outdoor comfort and safety (15 items), walking and outdoor activities (14 items), indoor–outdoor connection (11 items), and connection to the world (6 items). Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) estimates of interrater reliability were .91 for the overall instrument, ranging from .83 to .98 for the 5 domains. Interrater reliability (ICC) was above .70 for more than 79% of individual items. Test–retest reliability (ICC) was .92, ranging from .81 to .98 for domains.
Implications: The SOS tool fills a gap in the available environmental assessment instruments, providing a reliable way for researchers, providers, and designers to evaluate and compare the supportive potential of outdoor spaces for long-term care residents
The Rapid and Participatory Assessment of Land Suitability in Development Cooperation
Full text linkDevelopment cooperation in agriculture aims to contribute to the achieving of a large part
of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN 2030 Agenda, especially the first three,
No Poverty (1), Zero Hunger (2), and Good Health and Well-being (3). Development cooperation
in agriculture tries to help local communities to increase their awareness, participation, and skills
about the management of land and environmental resources, in order to realize sustainable devel-
opment. In this context, methods of participatory assessment of land suitability have been widely
and successfully applied. The present research took place in the framework of a real development
cooperation intervention in Nord Kivu (Democratic Republic of Congo) and aimed to implement a
rapid participatory assessment of land suitability. In this context, where official and detailed data
are not available, the study fostered the active involvement of local experts and used geographical
information systems (GIS) to identify the most suitable crops to be supported in different zones of
the study area. Toward this aim, the authors used a procedure based on the following steps: the
identification of relevant land use types (LUTs), mapping capability factors, describing the responses
of each LUT to the different capability factors, mapping potential land suitability for the LUTs,
mapping accessibility, mapping land suitability for the LUTs. Resulting maps and tables were used
to identify the most suitable areas for the different uses. Globally, forestry was the most suited use
(99.6% of the study area is potentially highly suitable), followed by the cropping of manioc, sorghum,
banana, oil palm, bean and cattle grazing in decreasing order (62.6% of the study area is potentially
highly suitable for grazing). When accessibility is considered, forestry presents the largest decrease in
the class of high potential suitability (−34.9% equal to a loss of 24,945.5 ha), while less adaptable uses,
such as cattle grazing showed lower decreases in highly suitable class (−11.2%) and larger increases
in scarcely suitable class (+9.5%). At a later stage, the comparison between computed suitability
and actual land use helped with identifying the areas where forestry should be the only (or most)
supported activity and the areas where to push integrated land uses. Our interpretation of the results
allows us to recommend the adoption of agroforestry and intercropping as the main methodologies to
integrate multiple aims such as the environmental conservation and the improvement of livelihoods
An Individual's Connection to Nature Can Affect Perceived Restorativeness of Natural Environments : Some Observations about Biophilia
Full text linkThis study investigates the relationship between the level to which a person feels connected to Nature and that person's ability to perceive the restorative value of a natural environment. We assume that perceived restorativeness may depend on an individual's connection to Nature and this relationship may also vary with the biophilic quality of the environment, i.e., the functional and aesthetic value of the natural environment which presumably gave an evolutionary advantage to our species. To this end, the level of connection to Nature and the perceived restorativeness of the environment were assessed in individuals visiting three parks characterized by their high level of "naturalness" and high or low biophilic quality. The results show that the perceived level of restorativeness is associated with the sense of connection to Nature, as well as the biophilic quality of the environment: individuals with different degrees of connection to Nature seek settings with different degrees of restorativeness and biophilic quality. This means that perceived restorativeness can also depend on an individual's "inclination" towards Nature
Tecniche per la valutazione della qualità visuale del paesaggio rurale
No full textThe assessment of rural landscape visual quality can be used in order to define areas with a greater aesthetic value that have to be protected from a too much invasive human action. The most used procedures for landscape visual quality assessment are based on photographic test techniques: a set of photographs of the landscape are taken and then shown to a group of people that is asked to express an evaluation judgement for each photo. The present work intends to investigate more in depth the influence of seasonal changes and photography techniques on the evaluation judgement about the rural landscape visual quality. The work analyses the factors that can influence the evaluation judgement of the photos. The factor analysed are: seasons, weather conditions (sunny and cloudy), time of the day (morning and afternoon), camera focal length (28 mm, 35 mm, 50 mm and 80 mm), “photo composition”(background, middle ground and foreground).
The judgements were processed in order to understand if and in which measure the factors analysed were able to influence the visual quality evaluation judgement.
The work has demonstrated that the visual quality
evaluation judgement is highly influenced by the season and the weather conditions, while doesn’t seem to be a clear relation with the camera and the “photo composition”
- …
