Urban areas are increasing worldwide at a dramatic rate and their soils definitely deserve more attentionthan they have received in the past. In urban environments, soils potentially provide the same ecosystemservices as in rural and wild environments, although in some cases they are depleted of their basicfunctions, such as when they lose their productive and filtering capacities because of sealing, and becomemere supports for infrastructures. In other cases, soils of urban areas acquire new functions that areunique to these environments. Current soil classifications fail to effectively account for the complexityof urban soils and the information that is required for their management. Additionally, the survey ofurban soils is difficult, due to fragmentation and rapid land use change and the fact that due to humanpressure their properties seldom vary linearly and predictably according to landforms, which hinders theeffectiveness of geostatistics. The conventional practice of grouping similar soils and transferring theirinformation in a concise manner is not viable for urban soils. We advocate the introduction of a facetedsystem – i.e., a scheme using semantic categories, either general or subject-specific, that are combinedto create the full classification entry – to organize the information on urban soils to support decision-making. The facets that such a system should be based on are not only the intrinsic physical and chemicalproperties that are usually used to describe any soil, but also other tangible or even immaterial propertiesthat are particularly meaningful in an urban context, such as landscape metrics, or aesthetic, social andhistorical values. As well as providing more adequately the information of the type requested by urbanplanners and policymakers, a faceted system of classification of urban soil resources would have theflexibility to accommodate all available or future scattered, rapidly changing, or incomplete data.

Describing urban soils through a faceted system ensures more informed decision-making / Ajmone-Marsan, Franco; Certini, Giacomo; Scalenghe, Riccardo. - In: LAND USE POLICY. - ISSN 0264-8377. - STAMPA. - 51:(2016), pp. 109-119. [10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.10.025]

Describing urban soils through a faceted system ensures more informed decision-making

CERTINI, GIACOMO;
2016

Abstract

Urban areas are increasing worldwide at a dramatic rate and their soils definitely deserve more attentionthan they have received in the past. In urban environments, soils potentially provide the same ecosystemservices as in rural and wild environments, although in some cases they are depleted of their basicfunctions, such as when they lose their productive and filtering capacities because of sealing, and becomemere supports for infrastructures. In other cases, soils of urban areas acquire new functions that areunique to these environments. Current soil classifications fail to effectively account for the complexityof urban soils and the information that is required for their management. Additionally, the survey ofurban soils is difficult, due to fragmentation and rapid land use change and the fact that due to humanpressure their properties seldom vary linearly and predictably according to landforms, which hinders theeffectiveness of geostatistics. The conventional practice of grouping similar soils and transferring theirinformation in a concise manner is not viable for urban soils. We advocate the introduction of a facetedsystem – i.e., a scheme using semantic categories, either general or subject-specific, that are combinedto create the full classification entry – to organize the information on urban soils to support decision-making. The facets that such a system should be based on are not only the intrinsic physical and chemicalproperties that are usually used to describe any soil, but also other tangible or even immaterial propertiesthat are particularly meaningful in an urban context, such as landscape metrics, or aesthetic, social andhistorical values. As well as providing more adequately the information of the type requested by urbanplanners and policymakers, a faceted system of classification of urban soil resources would have theflexibility to accommodate all available or future scattered, rapidly changing, or incomplete data.
2016
51
109
119
Ajmone-Marsan, Franco; Certini, Giacomo; Scalenghe, Riccardo
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Utilizza questo identificatore per citare o creare un link a questa risorsa: https://hdl.handle.net/2158/1012172
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