Soil Quality and Peri-Urban Expansion of Cities: A Mediterranean Experience (Athens, Greece)

Abstract

Soil loss and peri-urban settlement expansion are key issues in urban sustainability, with multi-disciplinary implications that go beyond individual ecological and socioeconomic dimensions. Our study illustrates an assessment framework diachronically evaluating urbanization-driven soil quality loss in a Southern European metropolitan region (Athens, Greece). We tested the assumption that urban growth is a process consuming high-quality soils in a selective way analyzing two spatial layers, a map illustrating the diachronic expansion of settlements at five time points (1948, 1975, 1990, 2000, and 2018), and a geo-database reporting basic soil properties. The empirical results showed that the urban expansion in the Athens region took place by consuming higher- quality soil in fertile, mostly flat, districts. It entailed a persistent soil quality decrease over time. This trend globally accelerated in recent years, but in a heterogeneous way. Actually, newly built, more compact areas expanded on soils with lower erosion risk than in the past. Besides, low-density land take is likely to be observed in soils with moderate-high or very-high qualities. These evidences reflect the need for a comprehensive evaluation of complex processes of land take informing spatial planning for metropolitan sustainability.

Directions of land degradation in the greater Istanbul metropolitan area: A view from four decades

“…This trend is in line with similar patterns observed in several other cities in Europe (Belenok et al, 2022;Bianchini et al, 2021;Nickayin et al, 2021;Wnęk et al, 2021), America (Rees, 2016), Asia (Li & Cao, 2021;Santos & Zhang, 2021), and Africa (Güneralp et al, 2017).…”

“…Our research reveals a concerning trend of LD in Istanbul over the past four decades, predominantly driven by anthropogenic activities. This trend is in line with similar patterns observed in several other cities in Europe (Belenok et al, 2022; Bianchini et al, 2021; Nickayin et al, 2021; Wnęk et al, 2021), America (Rees, 2016), Asia (Li & Cao, 2021; Santos & Zhang, 2021), and Africa (Güneralp et al, 2017). The global scale of large‐city urbanization throughout the world in recent decades is shown by Sun et al (2020).…”

Recognition and Prediction of Land Dynamics and Its Associated Impacts in Al-Qurayyat City and along Al-Shamal Train Pathway in Saudi Arabia

“…The extensive urban growth led to negative impacts on agricultural production, which resulted in the reduction in soil fertility, loss of agricultural variation and quality of crops. Additionally, rapid urban growth would affect the hydrogeological instability and causes the loss of biodiversity, green areas, low carbon stocks in soil, in addition to raising the costs of energy services [49,50]. Thus, widespread urban growth is considered a main cause of the long-term dynamics of soil consumption and erosion [51].…”

A Sustainable Approach to Geomatic Methods in Ravine Monitoring and Associated Natural Disaster Prevention

“…Preserving soil quality is therefore essential to guarantee the balance between human intervention and the resilience of natural systems. Soil conditions not only affect the overall functioning of the ecological infrastructure they belong to, but also food and hydrogeological safety, the protection of biodiversity, the effects of climate change, and trade deriving from ecosystem services" [4]. The study, prevention and amelioration of soil erosion is an issue of sustainable development.…”