EUKN - Italy - ESPON Thematic Atlas: providing an overview on ESPON findings, IT

ESPON Thematic Atlas: providing an overview on ESPON findings, IT

Introduction

The ESPON Thematic Atlas is a research lead by the Italian Ministry for Infrastructure aimed to diffuse the most relevant ESPON (European Spatial Observation Network) Programme 2006 results. The Atlas provides an in-depth overview on the latest ESPON findings on European territorial development.

Description

The main objective of the ESPON Thematic Atlas is to improve, capitalise and disseminate knowledge on European territorial issues, trends and policy impact. In particular, the Atlas is a tool to compare the Italian and the European territorial issues through the investigation of projects’ information. Processing data provided by ESPON projects helps to describe the main findings produced by the ESPON 2006 Programme. The Atlas disseminates the results of URBACT Programme in order to support Italian projects focused on territorial development and spatial planning.

Background information

Investigating the European territory and its evolution is an important instrument to implement territorial cohesion policies. In Italy, the creation of these policies is very slow due to the scarce awareness on territorial issues, in particular of hazards and risks. Within this context, the tight relation between territorial, economic and social cohesion has to be taken into account and compared to the territorial diversity of European Member States. Each territory has its own assets and suffers different issues. Thus, there is a need to have a broader vision of cohesion that overcomes differences in territories’ development and in their relationships.

Methodology

The research is divided into chapters concerning:

urban and territorial systems: typologies of urban areas, tourist offer and demographic trends, urban networks, urban rural-relationships
accessibilty: roads, highways, rails, crafts and sea accesibility
natural heritage and sustainabilty: urban pressure, presence of forests, environmental risks, fires, gas emissions
cultural heritage: cultural sites, tourist pressure on cultural sites, cultural heritage sustainability
human capital and demography: population density and dynamics, migration trends, population growing potentialities
competitiveness: services, research, working patterns, new European Union Member States development
economic patterns: regional development, GDP (Gross Domestic Product) trends, labour market issues
policies and their territorial consequences: impact of transport, telecommunication, research, Structural Funds and agricultural policies.

EU involvement

The European Spatial Planning Observation Network was launched in 2002 as a Programme aimed at increasing territorial, trend and policy knowledge. The research aims at disseminating the ESPON Programme results as they are useful to improve European knowledge in Italy, supporting the development of a European research community.

Conclusions

The Espon Thematic Atlas provides a new perspective of the European territorial trends through a comprehensive overview of the ESPON Programme’s main findings. The results have been divided per theme and arranged through synthesis maps combining different projects’ results. The explanation of each map provides users with more in-depth background information. The study’s main outputs are:

a better perception and application of the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) throughout Italy
the development of a spatial dimension in territorial cohesion policies and other EU policies
a better coordination among policy makers, researchers and experts
the development of an Italian “territorial” scientific community.

Contact info

Ministry for Infrastructure
Mrs. Cinzia Zincone

Publication date

Project finished

Researcher

Ministry for Infrastructure

Links

Ministry for Infrastructure (in italian)Espon Programme

Espon Thematic Atlas - Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 (PDF, ITA, 8,78 MB)

Espon Thematic Atlas - Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8 (PDF, ITA, 6,44 MB)

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy > Urban environment

Keywords

Environmental sustainability

Institutional characteristics National Government