The ENVIBASE-Project

Documentation / Online Handbook

Land use and Biotopes

Description of the Problem

Rome has a very large territory of about 1.290 km². This territory consists of the main centre of Rome, a secondary centre at Ostia on the coast, and some other very small urban centres. This fact means that most of the territory of the city is a non-urban area. Only 338 km² consist of built-up areas, as opposed to 947 km² of free areas, which is 73 % of the total area.

The territory of Rome can be considered very rich from the point of view of natural and historical resources: water, vegetation, flora, morphology, soil, historical heritage, and landscape structures can be held as important and worthy of preservation.

For preservation, the principal territorial strategy in ongoing development is the creation of a network-like "green structure," connecting the internal green areas inside the inner city with natural, agricultural, and semi-urban areas in the outer lying parts. The definition of the areas which form the network-like "green structure" is developed according to two main criteria:

• the inclusion of all the most important ecological, landscape, and historical standing forms;
• the selection of areas connecting the most important sites considered, in order to create the continuous network able to guarantee the conservation of the bio-diversity.

The identification of such a structure requires the availability of a data set, related to the different specified components (water, vegetation, flora, morphology, soil, historical heritage, and landscape structure), and the performance of data elaboration and processing and data presentation.

The laws dealing with environmental and historical areas preservation are divided among the two institutional levels with power of approving law. At the national level, the main law is Law n. 394/91, "Norme in materia di Aree Naturali Protette" (Rules on the Matter of Natural Protected Areas), while at the regional level, the basic law is Law n. 29/97, "Norme in materia di Aree Naturali Protette Regionali" (Rules on the Matter of Natural Protected Areas at the Regional level). Both these laws establish rules and procedures for the institution, organisation, and management of Natural Protected Areas, as well as for the financial incentives for the economic and social development of the areas and the control and enforcement provisions.

Furthermore, the regional government issues the laws for the institution of each park or reservation. In the territory of Rome, the following laws were issued:

• Law n. 92/80, "Institution of the Regional Urban Park Pineta di Castel Fusano"
• Law n. 55/89, "Institution of the Regional Urban Park Aguzzano"
• Law n. 21/87, "Institution of the Regional Urban Park Pineto"
• Law n. 66/88, "Institution of the Regional Park Appia Antica"

Data Sources

The first data source consists of remote sensing from satellite. This data source was used by the Latium region, in the framework of the CORINE LAND COVER programme, to define the Land Cover Map of Latium, comprehensive of the Roman territory. The digital data are surveyed by the Thematic Mapper Sensor, a multispectral scanner (7 bands) working on the Landsat D Satellite, with a resolution of 30 x 30 mt.

The data are collected and compared with other ancillary data, such as the photogrammetric images from airplanes in the scale 1:6 000, particularly conceived for study of the agricultural and forestry cover. From the point of view of the geometric reference topographic map, the map in use is the IGM (Istituto Geografico Militare) Map, in the scale of 1:25 000, from which a DEM (Digital Elevation Model) was defined.

A second data source consists of the survey of all the archeological and historical architectural monuments and buildings located in the Roman countryside (Agro Romano). Such a survey activity lasted for twenty years until 1980 and involved about 6,000 items.

The historical heritage is considered in a broader sense, since the survey includes, in the framework of a rural territory, landmarks such as cattle fountains, gates, industrial archeology; these landmarks are included because they contribute to a rural landscape of unique value. Other landscape elements of a non-built nature are considered, such as fences limiting the rural properties, tree rows, and country roads unchanged during several centuries which are sometimes based on ancient Roman roads.

Lastly, natural landscape elements such as woods, bushes and flood plains are considered. The inventory of landmarks in the Roman countryside landscape is divided into historical sections: ancient, medieval, Renaissance-baroque, and modern built periods.

A third data source is the inventory of the geotypes, which is attached to the Map of the Geological Landscape Units described in the soil chapter.

Another important element for the classification of the biotopes is the knowledge of the pedologic nature of soil units, analysed in the Soil Map.

Inventories by survey are made of vegetal species, nesting birds, and insects. The surveyed territory is the one inside the ring of the perific highway, which is about 360 km². As for the vegetal species, the survey is developed on the basis of a square grid of 190 elements, each measuring 1.6 km², and it includes about 1285 indigenous and naturalised species, while plants casually escaped from cultivation are listed in the floristic inventory but are not considered in the distribution grid. As for the nesting birds, the survey is developed on the basis of a grid of about 360 elements, each measuring 1 km², determining for each grid both the species’ richness and the quantity. All the inventories were issued in the year 1995 and have since been updated. The Latium region developed a database in the framework of the "BioItaly Project," aimed at identifying the Sites of Importance at European Union level, according to the so-called "Habitat Directive," n. 92/43/CEE.

The database is aimed at documenting the habitat and/or species characterising each site, both on the basis of direct survey and bibliographic documentation, and was updated in June of 1995.

Lastly, the City of Rome Department X managed a study of the vegetation on four watersheds’ tributaries of the Tiber River north of the city centre. The study was developed by sampling the watersheds at representative locations determined by recognition and by floristic inventory of the vegetal associations, the dominant species, and the consistency of each species.

Methods

The data related to the CORINE Land Cover Project, surveyed by satellite, are elaborated by image interpretation, using a legend adopted by the project for all of Europe. Such a legend is organised according to three levels of progressive detail. At the third level, the most detailed, the legend consists of forty-four categories.

The survey data of the archeological sites and historical buildings were integrated with the bibliographic information. These were then evaluated in order to assess the importance of each site or building and decide about its inclusion in the Map of the Roman Countryside elaborated as a synthesis of the survey.

For the Flora, Nesting Birds and Insects Atlas, the data processing and evaluation consists in assessing the location and the definition of the quantitative (single species spatial quantity) and qualitative (species richness) range characterising the presence of vegetal and animal species on the basis of the square grid typical of the Atlas.

As for the study of the vegetation on four watersheds’ tributaries of the Tiber river north of the city, the method, as previously anticipated, consists in sampling the watersheds at representative locations determined by recognition and by floristic inventory of the vegetal associations, the dominant species, and the consistency of each species.

Results

The CORINE Land Cover satellite survey and image interpretation produced a Land Cover Map on the Latium region at the scale of 1:100 000.

The survey data of the archeological sites and historical buildings resulted in an inventory, with historical and bibliographical information on each site or building, and an analogical Map of the Roman Countryside (Carta Storica, Archeologica, Monumentale e Paesistica dell'Agro Romano) in the scale of 1:10 000, with a synthetic map in the scale of 1:50 000.

A reference number (for the archeological sites or the historical buildings) links the map location to the survey and bibliographical information.

The Flora, Nesting Birds and Insects Inventories formed the basis of three publications, the Flora, Nesting Birds, and Insects Atlases.

As for the BioItaly Project database, it is accompanied, but not linked, to raster topographic maps at the scale of 1:50 000 and includes vector information about the perimeter and a small linked database containing information about the importance level (Community, National, or Regional) and the identification code of each site.

The study of vegetation on four watersheds’ tributaries of the Tiber river north of the city was synthesised in application software reporting the survey data information at each sample location, which can be selected by means of a schematic map identifying reference quadrants for the survey samples. The application software can be downloaded from the internet at the Department homepage and is then available for public information and scientific purposes.

From this basic information level, an evaluation of the natural conditions inside the watersheds has been developed, determining for detailed sub-areas the degree of naturality from the confrontation between real and potential vegetation.

Uses

CORINE Land Cover Project is specially conceived to provide environmental information. From this point of view, it is suitable for the definition of planning instruments. In any case, its resolution and scale do not make it completely suitable for the city government management tasks. In this sense, at least for the intermediate and inner parts of the city of Rome, in which the mix of uses is relatively intensive, it should be integrated with surveys at a larger scale. It is appropriate for planning purposes at regional and intraregional scale.

The Map of the Roman Countryside was extensively used in the planning activity of the Master Plan General Update (Variante Generale di Piano Regolatore, the so-called "Certainty Plan" or "Piano delle Certezze").

The Atlas and the Map of the Roman Countryside were used to define the park system, that is the characters, location, and perimeter of regional, urban, and suburban parks in the territory of the city of Rome, and were and are still used to design the management and regulatory plans of each single park (Villa Ada, Castelfusano, Appia Antica, Pineto, Aguzzano).

The Atlases are also particularly conceived for scientific and public information at a high degree of specialised knowledge.

Lastly, all these data, information, and synthetic knowledge (maps, inventory, publications) are being used to support the candidacy of Rome as Biosphere Reserve, in the framework of the MAB - UNESCO Programme, and to make available, in case of nomination, an initial bulk of knowledge for the management of the activities related to the reserve nomination.