The Influence of Natura 2000 Sites on Land-Taking Processes at the Regional Level : An Empirical Analysis Concerning Sardinia ( Italy )

This article focuses on the role that the provisions of the Natura 2000 Network play in affecting land-taking processes by looking at the Italian region of Sardinia, where strict rules on land development have been enforced since 1993 through regional landscape plans and where an extensive Natura 2000 Network, covering nearly 19% of the regional land mass, was established in compliance with Directive 92/43/EEC on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora and Directive 2009/147/EC on the conservation of wild birds. The results and inferences of our study could be easily generalized to other European Union regions, provided that similar geographic datasets are available. By shedding some light on the relation between land take on the one hand, and nature conservation and landscape protection on the other, it is possible to enhance regional planning policies to prevent or hinder land-taking processes, and, by doing so, to help implementing the European Commission recommendation on no net land take by 2050 into the EU regional policies.


INTRODUCTION
 In the EU, the Birds and Habitats Directives are the cornerstone of nature legislation and of biodiversity policies.
 The Habitats Directive establishes Natura 2000, a network of core breeding and resting sites for rare and threatened species, and for rare and protected natural habitat types.
 Conservation measures are established to protect and maintain natural habitats and species of Community interest at a favorable conservation status.

INTRODUCTION
"Land take" (or "land uptake"): loss of agriculture, forest and other natural or semi-natural land resulting from urban and other artificial land developments.
Land take is significant issue in the EU, which established an ambitious goal: ("Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe", COM 571 /2011)  no net land take by 2050  impacts of EU policies on land take to be taken under control in 2014-20 funding programs.
C. Zoppi, S. Lai -The influence of Natura 2000 sites on land-taking processes at the regional level: An empirical analysis concerning Sardinia (Italy) Within Natura 2000 sites: land cover is mostly non-artificial.  Detailed land cover data are available  a dynamic study of land take is possible.  It is an island  the boundaries of the region where the Natura 2000 network is defined are straigthforward, not fuzzy.  The correlation between the presence and size of the regional N2Ss and land take, if any, is clear-cut.

DEFINITION OF A LAND-TAKE RELATED VARIABLE
 Land take is the "Change of the amount of agriculture, forest and other semi-natural and natural land taken by urban and other artificial land development" (European Environment Agency, 2013).
 The Corine Land Cover classification is quite handy to assess land take, because it classes land cover according to 5 main groups: 1. artificial land 2. agricultural areas 3. forests and semi-natural areas 4. wetlands 5. waterbodies.

So land take occurs when a land parcel has a non-artificial status in a given time and an artificial one in a next one.
 To study land take between 1990 and 2008, we put together data from two sources: 1. the 1990 Urban Morphologic Zones map of the EEA 2. the 2008 Regional Corine Land Cover (the 1990 map was preprocessed because of inconsistencies in resolution).
 In Sardinia, land take between 1990 and 2008 amounted to ≃ 3.2%.
C. Zoppi, S. Lai -The influence of Natura 2000 sites on land-taking processes at the regional level: An empirical analysis concerning Sardinia (Italy)

POTENTIAL DETERMINANTS OF LAND TAKE
C. Zoppi, S. Lai -The influence of Natura 2000 sites on land-taking processes at the regional level: An empirical analysis concerning Sardinia (Italy) NAT_2000: N2Ss areas. Sites aim at maintaining and restoring natural habitats in a favorable conservation status.
Maintenance and improvement in distribution, structure and functions of habitats and species are looked for.
We expect that land take should be minimized in Natura 2000 sites.
The presence and size of N2Ss is expected to be negatively correlated to land taking processes.
"rebound effect" argument (after Dewi et al. 2013) If land take is forbidden, land take may shift to areas close to the protected parcel.

LT_N2K:
Quantity of land uptaken within the N2Ss in a given municipality.
LT_9008 puts in evidence if and to what extent AAs have been effective in preventing negative impacts of the implementation of planning policies on N2Ss.
We expect that the higher the land take size, the higher the land uptaken from N2Ss within a municipality.

POTENTIAL DETERMINANTS OF LAND TAKE
C. Zoppi, S. Lai -The influence of Natura 2000 sites on land-taking processes at the regional level: An empirical analysis concerning Sardinia (Italy)
Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things." (Tobler's 1 st law of geography)
Could be negatively correlated to land take e.g. because a comparatively high municipal per-capita income pushes up investments in agriculture… … or could be positively correlated to land take e.g. if investments spur new building developments.
In the literature, residential density is usually positively correlated to land take.

POTENTIAL DETERMINANTS OF LAND TAKE
WAT_2K: total municipal area classed as "Wetlands" or "Water bodies" in the land-use map and included in the Natura 2000 network.

This variable is almost invariant between 1990 and 2008
The impact of this variable is expected to be negative.

CS_N2K: municipal land
area included in the coastal strip which is part of a N2S as well.
Under the provisions of the RLP, changes in land cover in the coastal strip are almost totally prevented.
Land take is forbidden whether the area is part of a N2S or not. The impact of this variable is expected to be negative.
Land transformations and new developments were prevented in these areas.
Land take is forbidden whether the area is part of a N2S or not. The impact of this variable is expected to be negative.

LT_9008
Ratio of the total municipal area whose land cover changed from non-urbanized to urbanized between 1990 and 2008 to the municipal land area