Trasformazioni dell'uso del suolo, naturalità del territorio e pianificazione ecologica

Summary LAND USE TRANSFORMATIONS, TERRITORY NATURALNESS AND ECOLOGICAL PLANNINGAn analysis is made of the land use transformations over the last sixty years, as well as the consequences of thesetransformations on the naturalness of the territories of three municipalities of the “Nuovo Circondario Imolese”(Bologna, Italy). The selected municipalities are: Medicina, Borgo Tossignano and Castel del Rio, which representthe main territorial aspects of the “Nuovo Circondario Imolese”.The land use transformations are quantified throughthe GIS comparison of the land use maps of the years 1995, 1976, 1994 and 2003. The corresponding legends aretransformed into the five categories of the first level CORINE Land Cover classes. The naturalness increases in thethree territories throughout the period 1955-2003, but with different quantitative importance: limited for the terri-tory of Medicina and progressively increasing from Borgo Tossignano to Castel del Rio. Urban areas increase too,but following a gradient opposite to the one concerning naturalness. The land use transformations in the “Nuovocircondario imolese” are similar to the trends reported for the same period in Italy as a whole and in many otherEuropean countries. Concerning the effects of land use transformations on the territory naturalness and biodiver-sity, our results highlight the critical state of the intensively used areas and the marginal areas. Some lines of ac-tion for a correct ecological planning of these different situations are suggested.