Pistone, Ivan (2023) Urban coasts in socio-ecological transition. A framework to analyse the city-sea interface. [Tesi di dottorato]

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Abstract

Urban coasts are places of both rupture and connection between land and sea, whose integrity appears to be fragmented since it is composed of variegated elements (port areas, production plants, urban beaches, insecure interstitial spaces) that can also be considered as pieces of a potential green-blue infrastructure. In this sense, the concept of city-sea interface can be mobilised as the physical, ecological, social and functional contact area between the edge of the city and the edge of the water. Its flexibility to social, environmental and management issue are comparable to an urban amphibious: this definition is linked to the urban coastal society, a community intimately connected to the coast and to the sea, in the context of the socio-spatial and climatic-environmental critical issues connected to the development of coastal cities. The research aims to explore how urban planning and governance processes can actually intervene in existing or potential coastal and maritime public spaces in order to mend the fragmented structure of the city-sea interface from a socio-recreational and environmental perspective, allowing users equal access to the urban sea and thus increasing the quality of life. These topics are explored in the Euro-Mediterranean context, in relation with large coastal cities through a specific but flexible methodological framework. A legal exploration describes the main MSP guidelines and how they are incorporated in national littoral governance systems, in order to analyse how the main nations along the Mediterranean sea deal with land-sea interactions. The geographical approach defines a spatial data model for the socio-environmental features of the interface, with the objective of helping planners and decision makers to identify critical hotspots along the urban shore and understand the functional and morphological composition of the coast. Finally, the psycho-social approach aims at studying the social representation of citizens in relation to accessibility, uses and planning adaptation, through on field survey and social participation, analysing how the fruition of the sea resource is perceived by urban coastal society. Urban coasts are places of both rupture and connection between land and sea, whose integrity appears to be fragmented since it is composed of variegated elements (port areas, production plants, urban beaches, insecure interstitial spaces) that can also be considered as pieces of a potential green-blue infrastructure. In this sense, the concept of city-sea interface can be mobilised as the physical, ecological, social and functional contact area between the edge of the city and the edge of the water. Its flexibility to social, environmental and management issue are comparable to an urban amphibious: this definition is linked to the urban coastal society, a community intimately connected to the coast and to the sea, in the context of the socio-spatial and climatic-environmental critical issues connected to the development of coastal cities. The research aims to explore how urban planning and governance processes can actually intervene in existing or potential coastal and maritime public spaces in order to mend the fragmented structure of the city-sea interface from a socio-recreational and environmental perspective, allowing users equal access to the urban sea and thus increasing the quality of life. These topics are explored in the Euro-Mediterranean context, in relation with large coastal cities through a specific but flexible methodological framework. A legal exploration describes the main MSP guidelines and how they are incorporated in national littoral governance systems, in order to analyse how the main nations along the Mediterranean sea deal with land-sea interactions. The geographical approach defines a spatial data model for the socio-environmental features of the interface, with the objective of helping planners and decision makers to identify critical hotspots along the urban shore and understand the functional and morphological composition of the coast. Finally, the psycho-social approach aims at studying the social representation of citizens in relation to accessibility, uses and planning adaptation, through on field survey and social participation, analysing how the fruition of the sea resource is perceived by urban coastal society. This framework is proposed as a benchmarking tool: specifically, it has been applied to Marseille and Naples, two similar Mediterranean cities with complex city-sea interfaces, to analyse if their coasts are actually designed and managed according to social expectations and how much the growing urban pressure relates to the environmental crisis. The framework can also support the implementation of coastal-maritime planning at a local scale, giving a theoretical and operational base for future plans and policies aimed at the improvement of littoral socio-recreational and environmental features, proposing an adaptive methodological approach for an effective downscaling, since the city-sea interface can be considered as a reading key for both traditional coastal land use planning and the more recent maritime spatial planning.

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