1,720,994 research outputs found
Case study: Italy
No full textFarm structure in Italy is very fragmented, with the average farm size equal to 9.5 ha in 2016. Land regulations that have been introduced typically aim to increase the average farm size, by consolidating the land property through markets (by farmers), by liberalising land rental contracts and by pre-emptive rights on land acquisition
Balancing social and economic impacts of nature-based solutions for storm water management
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The Embeddedness of Nature-Based Solutions in the Recovery and Resilience Plans as Multifunctional Approaches to Foster the Climate Transition: The Cases of Italy and Portugal
No full textEuropean countries recently prepared recovery and resilience plans (RRPs) to recover from the pandemic crisis and reach climate neutrality. Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are recognized as crucial drivers to fostering climate transition while addressing other challenges. Accordingly, RRPs offer the opportunity to promote the adoption of NBS. This article assesses the NBS embeddedness in the policy discourse of Italian and Portuguese RRPs and how they are considered to meet climate–and related environmental–targets. We conducted a discourse analysis based on two steps, (i) a quantitative analysis to classify different nature-related terms into four categories—biophysical elements, general environmental concepts, threats and challenges, and NBS—and estimate their frequency in the text; (ii) a qualitative analysis to understand the relationship between the categories of challenges and NBS as well as the dedicated investments. The results show that NBS are barely mentioned, with a frequency in the texts for the NBS category of 0.04% and 0.01%, respectively, in Italian and Portuguese RRPs. Narratives are mainly built around general concepts such as resilience and sustainability with nature scarcely considered as an ex novo solution to meet challenges. Notwithstanding, Italy invests 330 M in the implementation of urban forests, while in Portugal, no specific NBS interventions have been considered so far. To date, both countries are primarily orienting the climate transition toward reducing emissions instead of combining these measures with multifunctional NBS to address environmental and socio-economic challenges
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Cost-Effectiveness of Nature-Based Solutions under Different Implementation Scenarios: A National Perspective for Italian Urban Areas
No full textWorldwide, national governments and private organizations are increasingly investing in Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) to foster both human well-being and biodiversity while achieving climate and environmental targets. Yet, investments in NBS remain uncoordinated among planning levels, their co-benefits underestimated, and their effectiveness undermined. This study aims to provide a spatially explicit approach to optimize the budget allocation for NBS implementation across Italian urban areas while maximizing their effectiveness in terms of environmental health. We explored three different NBS implementation scenarios oriented to (i) maximize the Ecosystem Services supply of NBS (Scenario BP), (ii) minimize costs of NBS (Scenario LC), and (iii) maximize Ecosystem Services supply of NBS at the lowest cost (Scenario CP). Once selected, we prioritized their allocation through the territory following an environmental risk index for population, and we explored the relationship between costs and effectiveness for the three scenarios. The implementation of Scenario BP costs EUR 777 billion while showing 31 billion of effectiveness. Scenario LC costs 70% less than scenario BP (EUR 206 billion) while losing 70% of its effectiveness. Scenario CP costs 60% less than Scenario BP (EUR 301 billion), offering just 20% less effectiveness. Our results show that employing the risk index for NBS allocation would allow for reducing the surface of interventions by saving 67% of the budget in the three scenarios with a negligible loss in terms of return for human health. The here-proposed approach can guide the national funds’ allocation system, improving its cost-effectiveness and equitableness
Dimensions of shrinkage: Evaluating the socio-economic consequences of population decline in two medium-sized cities in Europe, using the SULD decision support tool
No full textAll over Europe, it is a known fact that cities are shrinking. One of the main causes is population decline, but the consequent reduction of urban area is neither immediate nor easy to foresee spatially. Questions arise such as where do cities start to ‘shrink’ first? What are the most fragile areas that face the risk of becoming derelict? What are the most vulnerable social groups? And how does this affect real estate values across the city? Existing models for projecting the effects of shrinkage have been criticized for lacking spatial-explicitness, being excessively data-dependent, and failing to incorporate various socio-economic, urban and environmental aspects in the assessment of attractiveness of urban areas and of decisions by households. In this article, we attempt to overcome this criticism by applying the spatially-explicit Sustainable Urbanizing Landscape Development decision support tool (SULD), based on hedonic pricing theory, in two cities in southern Europe (Aveiro, Portugal and Imperia, Italy). SULD is used to project, assess and compare changes in land-use, household type distribution, real estate values and household densities, in three different scenarios of population decline (−5%, −10% and −15%). Results quantify the amount of contraction of urban area, housing quantity and living space; highlight the most problematic areas; and uncover low income households as the least affected, whereas the relocation of high income households may cause gentrification of medium income households in some areas of the historical city centre
Assessing the socio-economic benefits from green/blue space rehabilitation: a case study for the Confluence area in Lyon
No full textThis paper aims to demonstrate the added socio-economic value of green/blue spaces in urban areas. The Sustainable Urban Landscape Development (SULD) hedonic pricing
simulation model is applied to the case-study of Confluence in Lyon, France. Scenario simulations are performed for the establishment of urban parks, along with the requalification
of riverfronts and development of road infrastructure. Results show that the first two interventions (parks and parks plus requalification) attract high-income households and,
hence, lead to increases in real estate values up to +28%. The latter intervention (parks plus new road infrastructure) also attracts low-income households, which leads to a smaller
increase in real estate values. SULD aids in improving urban planning strategies, in terms of drafting plans, public discussion and monitoring
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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