A METHOD FOR THE ECOLOGICAL USE OF VEGETATION IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

Urban reforestation is recognised as a valid strategy to counter the loss of functionalities of the ecosystem services in an urban context, where vegetation has the dual role of environmental and landscape qualitative indicator. Ecological studies have explored methods to assess these qualities, and the Index of Landscape Conservation (ILC) represents one of the most advanced approaches developed in this field. Nevertheless, this method has been mainly applied in large scale planning models (e.g. regional and provincial). Consequently, the potential of this method at the urban scale has not been explored yet. This study deals with this lacuna, analysing the environmental and landscape qualities of the rural matrix of the Latina municipality, whose naturalness and identity of this Mediterranean landscape are compromised by the urban sprawl. Specifically, urbanisation is progressively altering both the riparian vegetation of the hydrographic network (i.e. natural component) and the windbreak vegetation barriers (i.e. identity component) of the Latina landscape. Therefore, in order to contrast this phenomenon, an innovative approach has been implemented, which is based on the combined use of the re-calibration of ILC and the analysis of the level of isolation of residual natural fragments in the rural matrix. Findings are useful to formulate environmental design proposals aimed at promoting direct actions of urban reforestation by inhabitants for the conscious recovery of ecosystem services.