This volume introduces an innovative tool for the development of sustainable cities and the promotion of the quality of life of city inhabitants. It presents a decision-support system to orient public administrations in identifying development scenarios for sustainable urban and territorial transformations. The authors have split the volume into five parts, which respectively describe the theoretical basis of the book, the policies in question and indicators that influence them, the decision-support system that connects indicators to policies, the case study of Ancona, Italy, and potential future directions for this work. This volume is based on transdisciplinary research completed in May 2016 that involved about 40 researchers at The University of Camerino, Italy and other European universities. With purchase of this book, readers will also have access to Electronic Supplementary Material that contains a database with groups of indicators of assessment of urban quality of life and a toolkit containing the data processing system and management information system used in the book’s case study.

Today, more than 50% of the world’s population lives in cities and is subject to particular environmental and economic impacts against the backdrop of an evolving planetary crisis. This book explores the intimate relationship between the quality of life of city dwellers and the quality of urban landscapes, including those regenerated through green spaces and environmental networks. Starting from the concept of “landscape” as defined by the European Landscape Convention (i.e. "an area, perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors"), it expands upon, in particular, the interactions between the different biotic and abiotic components that contribute to the quality of the landscape and the environment. In the first part of the book, the author examines fundamental concepts and discusses a variety of relevant topics, such as the city under transformation, waste spaces, smart communities, regeneration programs, the role of environmental networks, and new instruments for decision making. The second part is devoted to a case study of the Italian Adriatic city that highlights the need for interdisciplinary interaction among researchers in apparently disparate fields, including ecology, forest botany, chemistry, biology, geology, sociology, economics, architecture, and engineering.​

The study of quality of urban life involves both an objective approach to analysis using spatially aggregated secondary data and a subjective approach using unit record survey data whereby people provide subjective evaluations of QOL domains. This book provides a comprehensive overview of theoretical perspectives on QOUL and methodological approaches to research design to investigate QOUL and measure QOL dimensions. It incorporates empirical investigations into QOUL in a range of cities across the world.

This book on urban design extends and develops the widely accepted 'compact city' solution. It provides a design proposal for a new kind of sustainable urban landscape: Urban Agriculture. By growing food within an urban rather than exclusively rural environment, urban agriculture would reduce the need for industrialized production, packaging and transportation of foodstuffs to the city dwelling consumers. The revolutionary and innovative concepts put forth in this book have potential to shape the future of our cities quality of life within them. Urban design is shown in practice through international case studies and the arguments presented are supported by quantified economic, environmental and social justifications.

Ecosystem services are the resources and processes supplied by natural ecosystems which benefit humankind (for example, pollination of crops by insects, or water filtration by wetlands). They underpin life on earth, provide major inputs to many economic sectors and support our lifestyles. Agricultural and urban areas are by far the largest users of ecosystems and their services and (for the first time) this book explores the role that ecosystem services play in these managed environments. The book also explores methods of evaluating ecosystem services, and discusses how these services can be maintained and enhanced in our farmlands and cities. This book will be useful to students and researchers from a variety of fields, including applied ecology, environmental economics, agriculture and forestry, and also to local and regional planners and policy makers.

"Addresses key issues and best practice for urban conservation Authors able to offer unique insight from UNESCO's World Heritage Centre Examples drawn from urban heritage sites worldwide -- from Timbuktu to Liverpool Richly illustrated with colour photographs."-- Résumé Wordcat.

This book provides a unique synthesis of concepts and tools to examine natural resource, socio-economic, legal, policy and institutional issues that are important for managing urban growth into the future. The book will particularly help the reader to understand the current issues and challenges and develop strategies and practices to cope with future pressures of urbanisation and peri-urban land, water and energy use challenges. In particular, the book will help the reader to discover underlying principles for the planning of future cities and peri-urban regions in relation to: (i) Balanced urban development policies and institutions for future cities; (ii) Understanding the effects of land use change, population increase, and water demand on the liveability of cities; (iii) Long-term planning needs and transdisciplinary approaches to ensure the secured future for generations ahead; and (iv) Strategies to adapt the cities and land, water and energy uses for viable and liveable cities. There are growing concerns about water, food security and sustainability with increased urbanisation worldwide. For cities to be liveable and sustainable into the future there is a need to maintain the natural resource base and the ecosystem services in the peri-urban areas surrounding cities. This need is increasing under the looming spectre of global warming and climate change. This book will be of interest to policy makers, urban planners, researchers, post-graduate students in urban planning, environmental and water resources management, and managers in municipal councils.

In recent years EU policy towards the ‘landscape’ has become better defined, whereas at the same time the notion of ‘landscape’ itself remains elusive. The need for indicators to evaluate and monitor the effects of landscape policies and plans is urgent. What is more, landscape is one of the components considered in environmental reporting, but unlike air, soil, or water, it is difficult to measure using quantitative methods. With studies on landscape indicators being as rare as they are, this volume is an attempt to fill the gap, dealing as it does with the definition and use of specific indicators for landscape assessment and monitoring. To tackle the diverse dimensions of the landscape (whose complexity is well known), the subject is approached by a multidisciplinary team of experts in landscape ecology, landscape history, landscape perception, regional planning, strategic environmental assessment and environmental impact assessment procedures, and multi-criteria assessment methods. Individual chapters include comparative assessments of studies conducted thus far in the EU, as well as detailed analyses of ecological, historical, perceptive, land-use, and economic ways of looking at landscape. As well as providing a rich source of references for researchers studying the landscape from a variety of perspectives, the book will be required reading for European officials involved at any level in planning or assessing the landscape or environment.

Landscape Research-I