Introduzione

E+S-LCA Environmental and Social Life Cycle Analysis and natural heritage The material in this volume was developed as part of a PRIN interdisciplinary research project in the Architectural Technologies area of the University of Florence’s Department of Architecture. The PRIN research bore the title, " Restructuring and Sustainable Improvements of Urban and Rural Spaces: A Comparison of Tourism and Historical, Cultural, Architectural, and Environmental Perspectives“ and was subtitled “Sustainable Development Models in Protected Areas." The University of Florence Research Unit’s contribution focused on sustainability analysis as a tool for monitoring, re-interpreting, developing, and enhancing an area, especially its natural heritage. From a disciplinary point of view, and in a broader comparison of the various disciplines converging in this research, we have therefore formulated the following research questions: Can the life-cycle approach be appropriate and feasible in the analysis of an area’s sustainability as it evolves towards a methodology capable of incorporating local as well as global dimensions, macro and meso scales besides a product one, and social and cultural dimensions as well as environmental and economic ones? Is this approach effective in building sustainability analyses, in terms of the ability to integrate diverse skills and methods, various assessment criteria and points of view, and the potential to produce results from an analysis that are explicable with common, objectively measurable indicators, that can be used in the dynamics of an area’s transformation processes? The book develops environmental and social issues related to the Land Use Functions. In relation to the relevance of the aspects of safeguarding ecosystem biodiversity in protected natural areas, aspects included in the LCA methodology for environmental impact analyses, we developed the topic of natural habitat fragmentation in biodiversity loss processes and of the pressure and impact indicators related to these phenomena. With regard to the social sustainability aspects, the methodological framework outlined delves only into those aspects related to the protected areas use and environmental accessibility. The research was developed on a methodological level, and applied to a case study: the Migliarino San Rossore Massaciuccoli Regional Park in Tuscany. Methodologically, the contribution built an overview of the analytical phases and the indicators supporting them. The methodological framework that has been developed is outlined in chapter 3, while the environmental, biodiversity and social aspects are expanded in chapters 4, 5, and 6. The general framework refers to some concepts developed by applying a LC methodology on a local scale. In particular, it defines the "life cycle" concept in reference to a local area as a system of internal, upstream and downstream processes relative to the activities, performances, and resources of the area in question, and the environmental/ecosystem flows and social relations as criteria to identify the boundaries of sustainability analysis and an interpretation model of the area and its relationship with the context on various scales. The conditions under which this approach can be applied must unquestionably be investigated and studied further, both from a scientific and an operational perspective. Nevertheless, some aspects have been brought to light thanks to the research in the case study (in Part II of the book): - the interpretation of an area as a system of "land use functions" to which the process (production, settlement, use and consumption, management) and resource (social and cultural resources, economic production, natural biotic and abiotic) cycles refer; - environmental and ecological flows and the social relations that each time determine the variable boundaries of sustainability analysis, in order "not to transfer" so that “negative impacts” are not transferred to other stages of the life cycle and/or other districts; - the significance of environmental (with particular attention to biodiversity) and social indicators (with particular attention to environmental-spatial accessibility) on a local scale, in relation to the (descriptive and strategic) role of sustainability analysis; - the availability of data and processing methods for local, regional and global assessments; - the usability of the indicators, particularly qualitative ones, in a communicable form using maps.