Donatella Cialdea

This work focuses on small towns and the need for post-disaster planning. While it is widely acknowledged that a shift from 'emergency planning' to 'aware spatial planning' is advisable, this simple concept often remains inapplicable, as we too often find ourselves having to intervene in an area only after a disaster has occurred. Small villages in Italy are a treasure of cultural heritage. The topic has been the subject of research by the “Borghi Group” of the Italian Ministry of Culture, in which the first author participated. It moves from emergency planning to project design, from knowledge of historical and artistic heritage to territorial security, including the important issue of landscape conservation. This paper aims to develop a methodology for interpreting territory that considers its various components, presenting a case study in southern Italy, specifically in the Municipality of Monacilioni, which in the 1960s was subject to repeated landslides that destroyed much of the historic centre. The project described here aims to improve the landscape quality of the urban centre, guided by a methodology that can be replicated in other similar contexts.

This paper addresses the issues of fragility and complexity of small towns, particularly regarding the Italian case. Results define a possible conjunction between the landscape historical characteristics and the creation of circuits for the usability of smaller centres that can be connected to each other, based on their features. A prototype schedule, including GIS elaboration, is the novel proposal illustrated in the paper: it derives from the investigation carried out within the Working Group of the Italian Ministry of Culture, aimed at defining a Charter for Small Villages. The approach innovativeness consists in the comparison methodology between different landscape units that can also be extended to similar cases, defined on the basis of the involved factors matrix.

The River Contract, as a new negotiated process, even if it is not yet clearly placed in the context of spatial planning tools, can play an important role in the improvement phases of territorial governance policies. River networks, which often cross urban spaces, can certainly be considered places of choice for the contemporary experimentation of territorial and local strategies. This paper analyses the different possibilities of acting on natural infrastructures, through the analysis of cases carried out in various European countries. This investigation led to the definition of recurring advantages and disadvantages in river planning application, expecially referring to the Italian national context for the Landscape Plan, a special planning tool for landscape issues, included waterways. Despite the disadvantages, the River Contract represents a concrete possibility of achieving landscape aims: this process, acting at different scales of intervention, could contribute to solving the complex system of relations between all the components involved.

Landscape values are addressed by planning tools in several diversified ways. Many European countries have joined the European Landscape Convention which just turned 20 last year. This work aims at investigating its implementations and relationships with general and local planning tools, focusing on two main objectives: the first one concerns the analysis of principles regulating regional strategies, deriving from European dictates and State norms. It has been focused in the Sicily region in Italy, the largest island in the Mediterranean basin. The second objective concerns the in-depth analysis of territories of a fragile nature in which the two terms that characterize the landscape, culture and nature, merge together. This paper consists in gathering information deriving from the various planning levels, proposing a comparison methodology which takes into account physical–environmental and landscape–visual features in some sample cases within protected areas, but in a highly urbanized context. A system and database were created and implemented within the geographic information system, drawing up a comparison between environmental requirements and development strategies.

This paper focuses on the importance of watercourses, on the presence of historical, naturalistic and environmental factors and on the necessary requirements to be strongly considered in planning tools that involve spatial development processes. The theoretical approach to this topic is then experimented on the case of the Tiber River in a particularly critical area of its course, which falls within the province of Rome. In order to overcome the complex difficulties that the river encounters along its path, the creation of a River Contract is conceived, as an innovative tool for the development of the river territory as a public space. The main issue of this article is to expose a methodology developed for the definition of landscape quality aims: it is mainly aimed at strengthening the idea that the River Contract could be an implementation stage of the Landscape Plan. The River Contract can play an important role in development strategies in Inner Areas and at the same time be an effective tool for recovering identity values. Effort was concentrated on the production of a territorial survey matrix that could be exploited by Local Authorities with the spirit of including the needs of the inhabitants.

This paper investigates the relationship between different factors that impose on the productive and settlement structures on coastal areas through an analysis carried out on the Italian Adriatic Sea coast. In the panorama of medium- and small-size cities, the relationship between the city, the territory, and the sea very often plays an important role. The main issue of this article is to expose a methodology developed for the definition of landscape quality objectives in the planning of the coast of a region in Southern Italy, Molise. Effort was concentrated on the creation of a territorial survey matrix that could be exploited by local authorities. In drawing up the criteria on which to base the New Regional Landscape Plan, this study provided for the recognition of the identifying matrices for landscape interpretation, creating a database organized in five resource systems. For each resource system, three basic grids were created: each of them collects and processes different information series. These three grids were useful for defining the new protection that is proposed for the sample area. Different conditions emerge in this area, in which two coastal strips have been identified, to the east and to the west of the historical centre.

This paper describes the phenomenon of illegal settlements. The case study focuses on the Molise region in the South of Italy, which is characterized...