Planning and Management of Mobility in Natural Protected Areas

The paper describes some relevant results of an on-going research aiming to elaborate a methodology to help the mobility management in natural parks, compatible with their protection missions: it has been developed a procedure to reproduce the mobility-environment relationships in various operational conditions. The final purpose is the identification of: a) the effects of various choices in transport planning, both at long term and strategic level; b) the most effective policies of mobility management. The work is articulated in the following steps: 1) definition of protected area on the basis of ecological and socio-economic criteria and legislative constraints; 2) analysis of mobility needs in the protected areas; 3) reconstruction of the state of the art of mobility management in natural parks at European level; 4) analysis of used traffic flows measurement methods; 5) analysis of environmental impacts due to transport systems modelling (air pollution and noise only); 6) identification of mitigation measures to be potentially applied. The whole methodology has been tested and validated on Italian case studies: i) the concerned area has been zoned according to the land-use peculiarities; ii) the local situations of transport infrastructure (roads and parking), services (public transport systems) and rules (traffic regulations) have been mapped with references to physical and functional attributes; iii) the mobility, both systematic and touristic, has been represented in an origin-destination matrix. By means of an assignment model the flows have been distributed and the corresponding average speeds to quantify gaseous and noise emissions was calculated, the criticalities in the reference scenario have been highlighted, as well as some alternative scenarios, including both operational and infrastructural measures have been identified. The comparison between projects and reference scenario allowed the quantification of effects (variation of emissions) for each scenario and a selection of the most effective management actions to be taken.

Planning and management of mobility in natural protected areas

The final purpose is the identification of: a) the effects of various choices in transport planning, both at long term and strategic level; b) the most effective policies of mobility management. The preliminary work was articulated in the following steps: 1) definition of protected area on the basis of ecological and socio-economic criteria and legislative constraints; 2) analysis of mobility needs in the protected areas; 3) reconstruction of the state of the art of mobility management in natural parks at European level; 4) analysis of used traffic flows measurement methods; 5) analysis of environmental impacts due to transport systems modelling (limited to air pollution and noise); 6) identification of mitigation measures to the potentially applied. The whole methodology has been firstly tested on the case study of the National Park of ?Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga? and further validated on the National Park of ?Gargano?, both located Italy: i) the concerned area has been zoned according to the land-use peculiarities; ii) the local situations of transport infrastructure (roads and parking), services (public transport systems) and rules (traffic regulations) have been mapped with references to physical and functional attributes; iii) the mobility, both systematic and touristic, has been synthetically represented in an origin-destination matrix. By means of an assignment model it has been determined the distribution of flows and the corresponding average speeds to quantify gaseous and noise emissions. On this basis the environmental criticalities in the reference scenario have been highlighted, as well as some alternative scenarios including both operational and infrastructural measures have been identified. The comparison between the projects and the reference scenario allowed the quantification of the effects (variation of emissions) for each scenario and a selection of the most effective management actions to be taken.

Land use modelling and the role of stakeholders in natural protected areas: the case of Doñana national park, Spain

Doñana, a National Park since 1969, a UNESCO site since 1994 among other protected area designations of national and international character, is a coastal dune and marshland ecosystem of outstanding importance for biodiversity and conservation at the mouth of the Guadalaquivir River, Southwest Spain. However, the Doñana natural area is seriously threatened by global change factors such as humanly induced climate change, habitat loss, overexploitation of ecosystem services, and pollution. Not all stakeholders are convinced of the benefits of the national park, and management of Doñana, its environs and watershed are the subject of intense disagreement. This interplay between natural characteristics of great value with intense human pressure makes Doñana a fascinating workshop for the study of global human environment interactions. Here, we discuss the role of stakeholders in the application of a cellular automatabased model to Doñana and its environs and present the results of a series of exercises undertaken with stakeholders to parametrize the model, something often done by researchers without stakeholder engagement. By engaging with stakeholders early in the project, feedback generated from workshops contributes to model development. Stakeholders are therefore contributors of empirical data for the model as well as independent evaluators providing local and specialist knowledge.

Implementation and management of private traffic limitation in urban areas: experiences and methodologies.

This paper shows the results of a research aimed to formulate a general model for supporting the implementation and management of an urban road pricing scheme. After a preliminary work, to define the state of the art in the field of sustainable urban mobility strategies, the problem has been theoretically set up in terms of transport economy, introducing the external costs’ concept duly translated into the principle of pricing for the use of public infrastructures. The research is based on the definition of a set of direct and indirect indicators to qualify the urban areas by land use, mobility, environmental and economic conditions. These indicators have been calculated for a selected set of typical urban areas in Europe on the basis of the results of a survey carried out by means of a specific questionnaire. Once identified the most typical and interesting applications of the road pricing concept in cities such as London (Congestion Charging), Milan (Ecopass), Stockholm (Congestion Tax) and Rome (ZTL), a large benchmarking exercise and the cross analysis of direct and indirect indicators, has allowed to define a simple general model, guidelines and key requirements for the implementation of a pricing scheme based traffic restriction in a generic urban area. The model has been finally applied to the design of a road pricing scheme for a particular area in Madrid, and to the quantification of the expected results of its implementation from a land use, mobility, environmental and economic perspective.

Space-time analysis of the urban-rural grafient in the metropolitan area of Madrid and ist surroundings -Guadalajara and Toledo.

According to UN provisions in the period from 2007 to 2050 world population will grow up to 9200 million people. In fact, for the first time in history, in the year 2008 world urban population became higher than rural population. The increase of urban areas and their transport infrastructures has influenced agricultural land use due to their irreversible change, especially when they remain as periurban vacant land, losing their character and identity. In the Europe of the nineties, the traditional urban-rural gradient, characterized by a neat contact between both land types, has become so complex that it has change to a gradient in which it is difficult to separate urban and rural land uses. [Antrop 2004]. A literature review has been made on methodologies used for the urban-rural gradient analysis. One of these methodologies was selected that integrates ecological characterization based on the use of spatial metrics and geographical characterization based on spatial components. Cartographical sources used were Corine Land Cover at 1: 100000 scale and the Spanish Land Use Information System at 1:25000 scale. Urban-rural gradient paradigm is an analysis methodology, coming from landscape ecology, which enables to investigate how urbanization provokes changes in ecological patterns and processes into landscape. [Hahs and McDonnell 2006].The present research adapt this methodology to study the urban-rural gradient in the outskirts of Madrid, Toledo and Guadalajara. Both scales (1:25000 and 1:100000) were simultaneously used to reach the next objectives: 1) Analysis of landscape pattern dynamics in relation to distance to the town centre and major infrastructures. 2) Analysis of landscape pattern dynamics in the fringe of protected areas. The paper presents a new approach to the urban-rural relationship which allows better planning and management of urban áreas.

Design and technical evaluation of an enhanced location-awareness service enabler for spatial disorientation management of elderly with mild cognitive impairment

The progressive ageing of population has turned the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) into a prevalent disease suffered by elderly. Consequently, the spatial disorientation has become a significant problem for older people and their caregivers. The ambient-assisted living applications are offering location-based services for empowering elderly to go outside and encouraging a greater independence. Therefore, this paper describes the design and technical evaluation of a location-awareness service enabler aimed at supporting and managing probable wandering situations of a person with MCI. Through the presence capabilities of the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) architecture, the service will alert patient's contacts if a hazardous situation is detected depending on his location. Furthermore, information about the older person's security areas has been included in the user profile managed by IMS. In doing so, the service enabler introduced contribute to “context-awareness” paradigm allowing the adaptation and personalization of services depending on user's context and specific conditions or preferences.

Laser remote sensing applications (LiDAR) in forest hydrology and the management of river ecosystems.

La utilización de sensores láser desde plataformas aéreas (LiDAR) ofrece nuevas posibilidades en el cartografiado de sistemas fluviales, tanto en áreas densamente cubiertas por vegetación, como en aquellas que presentan una escasa cubierta. La información topográfica de alta resolución que se obtiene a partir de las medidas láser puede ser utilizada en el análisis y estimación de diversas variables hidrológicas, y en el estudio de diferentes componentes del medio fluvial. Entre éstas, cabe citar la vegetación riparia, la morfología fluvial, el régimen hidrológico o el grado de alteración de los ecosistemas debido a las presiones de origen antrópico. La gestión del medio fluvial puede ser mejorada en gran medida gracias a la precisión y fiabilidad de esta información. En muchas ocasiones, el escaso relieve de los valles fluviales y la densa cubierta vegetal que existe en ellos han dificultado la aplicación de otras técnicas de teledetección. Sin embargo, los datos obtenidos mediante altimetría láser son especialmente aconsejables para estos trabajos, mediante análisis numéricos o a través de la simple interpretación de las imágenes obtenidas. Este artículo muestra las posibilidades de uso de los datos LiDAR en hidrología forestal y en la gestión de zonas húmedas, a lo largo de tramos con condiciones climáticas bien diferenciadas. En todas ellas, se comparan los resultados obtenidos mediante la aplicación de distinto software, con el fin de mostrar la mejor metodología de tratamiento de la información láser. Asimismo, se muestra la diferencia con otras técnicas de teledetección, y se muestra la fácil integración de los datos LiDAR con otras herramientas y metodologías de estudio de las variables citadas.