=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1152/paper13
|storemode=property
|title=Consequences of Limited Soil Protection In Cities of Central Europe Analyzed Through GIS Methods and Participatory Impact Assessment - URBAN SMS Project
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1152/paper13.pdf
|volume=Vol-1152
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/haicta/SiebielecLGZSSHBWPKVV11
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==Consequences of Limited Soil Protection In Cities of Central Europe Analyzed Through GIS Methods and Participatory Impact Assessment - URBAN SMS Project==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1152/paper13.pdf
Consequences of limited soil protection in cities of
Central Europe analyzed through GIS methods and
participatory impact assessment – URBAN SMS project
Grzegorz Siebielec1, Artur Lopatka1, Magdalena Gluszynska1, Anna Zurek1, Tomasz
Stuczynski1, Jaroslava Sobocka2, Sigbert Huber3, Petra Bluemlein4, Isabel
Wieshofer5, Marco Parolin6, Josef Kozak7, Petra Vokurkova7, Borut Vrscaj8
1
Department of Soil Science Erosion and Land Protection, Institute of Soil Science and Plant
Cultivation, Pulawy, Poland, e-mail: gs@iung.pulawy.pl
2
Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute, Slovakia
3
Environment Agency Austria
4
City of Stuttgart, Germany
5
City of Vienna, Austria
6
City of Milan, Italy
7
Czech University of Life Sciences, Czech Republic
8
Agricultural Institute of Slovenia, Slovenia
Abstract. Various methods were utilized for assessment of soil consumption
patterns and trends in the cities of Central Europe within Urban Soil
Management Strategy (URBAN-SMS) project. They included ex-post
assessment of soil loss based on land use change data, modeling of future soil
loss and participatory impact assessment. The major data inputs for ex-post
and ex-ante assessments were satellite image based land use maps and soil
maps. The participatory impact assessment involved series of meetings with
stakeholders and collecting their opinions in a semi-quantitative form. Existing
soil management systems in these cities did not efficiently protect the best soils
until 2006. Continuation of current management would lead to further non-
sustainable trends. The analysis revealed that there is no strong conflict
between soil protection goals and demand for land related to economic
development of the cities.
Keywords: land use, modeling, participatory impact assessment, soil, sealing
1. Introduction
During the last decade more emphasis was given to functions of landscapes
and their sustainability as a response to a need to minimize the depletion of
agricultural land resources and to reduce environmental and social impacts caused by
land use changes. The changes are not limited to land cover only, but potentially lead
to disturbance of landscape functions. The soil framework strategy presented by the
European Commission (COM 231, 2006) identifies number of threats to maintaining
soil functions in Europe: erosion, decline of organic matter, local and diffuse
_________________________________
Copyright ©by the paper’s authors. Copying permitted only for private and academic purposes.
In: M. Salampasis, A. Matopoulos (eds.): Proceedings of the International Conference on Information
and Communication Technologies
for Sustainable Agri-production and Environment (HAICTA 2011), Skiathos, 8-11 September, 2011.
157
contamination, sealing, compaction, decline in biodiversity, salinisation, floods and
landslides. Sealing is one of main threats itself, additionally urbanization of
agricultural land may accelerate the other degradation processes (Stuczynski, 2007).
Urbanization can be considered as a pressure on landscape reducing its
buffering capacity and resistance to degradation (Antrop, 2004). Evaluation of these
pressures is fundamental for development of strategies for protection of soils and soil
functions. Soil plays a particular role in supporting the environmental stability based
on its retention, buffering or provision of biodiversity potential. Soil quality is also
important to food safety and broadly understood population health.
There are different approaches for impact assessment of spatial development
or soil protection policies. Analytical approaches utilizing spatial information
systems are represented by ex-post or ex-ante assessments of soil loss during
urbanization process. Another approach involves participation of local stakeholders
and, thus, might be called ‘participatory impact assessment’. The major part of this
approach is collecting opinions of stakeholders on possible urbanization
consequences. The advantage of this method is that it involves individuals familiar
with local circumstances and needs, and allows to collect data also on social and
economic issues - which data is usually scarce and not present in spatial format.
The objective of the paper is to present various approaches for assessment of
urbanization pressure consequences for soil resources within cities of Central Europe.
The detailed goals were:
- to conduct an ex-post analysis of land use change, responding to different
soil protection regulations in several Central Europe cities
- to forecast urbanization sprawl in the pilot cities up to year 2030 for the
baseline scenario that assumes that there are no limitations for soil
consumption as related to soil quality
- to gather opinions of stakeholders on key sustainability issues in cities of
Central Europe and potential impacts of soil protection scenarios in a semi-
quantitative form
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Data
One of major constraints in spatial analysis of land use change is the quality
of mapping and uncertainties of cartographic information related to different sources,
scales and methodologies of land use map preparation. Resolution of official
European land use database Corine Land Cover (CLC) is inadequate for detailed
analysis of transition occurring in urban and suburban zones (EAA, 2005). Thus,
satellite images gathered from one source were employed for analysis of land use
conversion trends in the test areas in order to ensure consistency of land cover data
and allow comparability of results between cities. These were 10-meter resolution
SPOT satellite images. The B&W SPOT image is monospectral, color photo is a
combination of 4 bands of different wavelengths.
The images represented two periods to enable the study of land use change
trends within reasonable timeframe. The black and white photos were captured in
1990-1992 and color photos were taken in 2006-2007 period. One or two year
158
difference between cities was justified by the necessity to avoid low quality images,
e.g. due to excessive cloudiness.
Due to diverse soil quality assessment systems, present in different Central
European countries, and content of the soil maps the polygons on each map were
grouped into 3 classes. They represented high, medium and low quality soils (either
from perspective of production function, ecosystem function, buffering, retention
etc.). For example, the soil map of Bratislava contains soil quality classes according
to Slovakian valorization system in the 1 to 9 scale. Classes 1-4 were taken to the
high quality soils group, 5-6 to medium quality while classes 7-9 were considered as
low quality soils.
2.2. Analytical Approaches
Ex-post soil consumption assessment. The framework of the analysis of loss of
high quality soils in test areas involved development of land use change maps based
on consistent satellite image data, analysis of land use change trends within 15 years
period and subsequent assessment of on what soils the urbanization took place. The
analysis was performed for Bratislava, Prague, Vienna, Stuttgart, Milan, Salzburg
and Wroclaw. Land use maps of 10-meter resolution were produced for two periods
representing years 1990-1992 and 2006-2007 through classification of the satellite
images in Definiens Professional software. Land use maps contained 13 different
land use classes. Subsequently, the land use change information was superimposed
on maps of soil quality to gather information on soil quality cover by the expansion
of the following land use classes: continuous residential area, commercial/industrial
area and transport facilities. The soils under these new land use types fully lost their
environmental functions.
In order to assess what is the scale of valuable soils loss through urban
sprawl, a transition index (TI) was used. It reflects the intensity of land use flows in
the context of soil quality [Stuczynski, 2007]. The contribution of e.g. soils of high
productivity or high water retention potential to the total soil cover may vary greatly
between regions – therefore the size (measured in hectares) of change is not a good
indicator if these soils are preferentially taken by urbanization. Preferential flows
occur when a certain soil type (characteristics) represents a larger share in the
changed land as compared to the share of this type in the general soil cover.
The TI is the ratio between the share of a given soil type (class) within
the changed area and the share of this class in the total soil cover.
It must be noted that for calculation of share of different soil quality classes
in whole area only soils that were not sealed in 1990-1992 were taken into account.
In most cities soil maps did not cover forest areas, except Stuttgart and Prague, for
these two cities forest areas were excluded from the calculation since they are
generally protected against urbanization.
Interpreting the transition index is straightforward – for example, if the percentage
share of high quality soils within area changed into built-up areas is considerably
smaller than 1 (e.g 0.5) it means that these soils are protected from expansion of
artificial surfaces.
159
Ex-ante assessment of future soil loss. Modeling is becoming an important tool in
context of conflicts between urbanization and landscape or soil protection, since
urbanization driven degradation processes are often irreversible. Even if the
prediction power of models is sometime limited, they can provide valuable insights
into the development of trends caused by different soil protection regulations or
simply spatial distribution of valuable soils. The idea of using models lies in their
ability to detect possible conflicts which may arise as a result of existing or
implementing given new policies affecting land use (Hilferink & Rietveld, 1999;
Westhoek et al., 2006).
In the analysis we used the Cellular Automata-based Metronamica model.
The software was developed and provided by the Research Institute from Knowledge
Systems (RIKS) from Maastricht, The Netherlands (RIKS B.V., 2005). The software
utilizes cellular automata model to spatially distribute areas of particular land use
classes. Cellular automata (CA) is a discrete model which uses regular grid of cells,
each classified within finite number of states. In case of Metronamica land use
change modeling, these states refer to land use classes.
The land use maps and the soil maps, described in the previous section were
converted to raster data with grid resolution of 50 meters. It has been observed that
new residential areas were rather clustered and did not exhibit elements smaller that
50 meters.
In the modeling process the neighborhood of a cell (surrounding cells)
influences the transition of this cell into other class in the next time step. The cells
located further away have a smaller effect than cells closer to the centre cell. The
transition rules are the core of the CA and determine if, and how, the state of each
cell in the next time step changes.
The neighborhood effect in this analysis is defined as: the attraction or repulsion
effect of surrounding cells which eventually causes a change in cell status (type of
land use) of the centre cell. For each land use function, a set of rules determines the
degree to which it is attracted to, or repelled by, the other functions present in the
neighborhood.
In our simulation, based on the neighborhood land use interaction and, so
called, land suitability, the model calculates the value of transition potential (Pk) for
each cell and land use function and for every simulation time step. All cells are
ranked according to their transition potential, and cell transitions begin with the
highest ranked cell and the transition process proceeds downward.
Land suitability is used here to describe the degree to which a cell is able to
support a particular land use function. For transition into residential areas the Land
Suitability (LS) includes four factors: terrain suitability S (slope), road accessibility S
(distance to road), urban potential S (density of urbanized cells) and soil suitability S
(soil). It is also assumed that these factors work independently so that the final land
suitability (LS) is a product of them (1):
LS = S (slope) . S (dist. To road) . S (urban potential) . S (soil) (1)
160
Values for first three factors were derived from share of new urbanized cells that
appeared in the selected groups (percent slope or distance to road or density of
residential area in a neighborhood of cell) between 1990/92 and 2006/2007.
All three partial suitability layers were normalized to reach values within range from
0 to 100 (0 means that a given cell is not useful for residential area, 100 means that
there are no limitations to allocate urban function in this cell). Since in the baseline
scenario, described in this paper, no limitation in soil take up was assumed, the soil
suitability values for all three soil quality classes had the same value, equal 100.
The exemplary input data used for preparing maps of suitability components of the
Land Suitability for Bratislava are presented on Figure 1.
1a) Road accessibility. 1b) Terrain suitability.
1c) Urban potential suitability. 1d) Soil suitability.
Figure 1. Spatial input data for land suitability components for Bratislava area
Similarly as the ex-post analysis, the ex-ante assessment was performed for
Bratislava, Prague, Vienna, Stuttgart, Milan, Salzburg and Wroclaw.
161
For the modeling purposes the original 13-class classification was reclassified to 4
classes representing 4 groups of urban land utilization:
0) agricultural and semi-natural
1) residential continuous and discontinuous, commercial and industrial, dump and
mineral extraction sites, airports, transport facilities, sport and leisure facilities
2) forests, green recreation areas
3) water bodies.
In the simulation process it was assumed that urbanization may take place only on
agricultural and semi-natural areas (class 0), thus this group of land uses served as
land pool available for the potential sealing. Generally use of forest areas is restricted
in all cities, thus this class was excluded from allocation of new urban fabrics. Class
2 (forests and green recreation areas) and class 3 (water bodies) remained unchanged
in the modeling – their areas did not increase nor were not reduced.
The maps were generated by Monte Carlo method (100 runs) to display
probabilities for transformation of a given cell of agricultural or semi-natural area
into urban function and were compared to the historical changes (Figure 2). The
forecasted sealing sprawl was superimposed on the soil quality information in order
to provide information on potential future loss of soil resources. Thus, the TIs were
calculated also for the predicted future soil losses.
2a) historical changes 2b) forecasted no protection scenario
Figure 2. Historical (1990/92-2006/07) and forecasted soil sealing in Wroclaw. The
forecast is expressed as probability (intensive color – the highest) of sealing of a
given soil class (orange –high, blue – medium, green – low quality)
Participatory impact assessment. The applied approach was a modification of the
novel methodology used in SENSOR project that was proposed by Morris et al.
(2011). It is a participatory impact assessment method that involves work with a
group of stakeholders representative for the area of interest. The procedure involved
series of workshops during which the detailed set of questions led the stakeholders
through steps of impact assessment in order to gather their opinions in a semi-
quantitative form. Consistent methodology was applied to each pilot study area in
order to explore locally defined sustainability issues, scenario impacts and
sustainability limits, all in a form enabling comparison between cities. The
162
workshops was organized for the following pilot cities: Celje, Vienna, Milan, Prague,
Wroclaw, Bratislava.
The assessed soil functions were grouped into 3 sustainability pillars: social,
economic and environmental – each pillar is represented by 3 functions. The group of
social functions was represented by cultural, recreation and health functions. Cultural
function of soil can be understood e.g. as resource of archeological information
useful for capturing natural and human history of the site. Recreation function refers
to soil ability to provide sites of natural character for spending leisure time. This is an
important aspect of mental condition of the human population. Health function of
soil has a direct link to soil quality – soil contamination with inorganic (e.g. cadmium
or lead) or organic contaminants (e.g. Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) may affect
human health through number of pathways such as food contamination, soil
inhalation, direst ingestion of soil dust or secondary ground, surface or drinking
water contamination.
In traditional agricultural understanding soil function is considered as
production of food and feed. This serves as one of economic functions. The two other
are related to role of soil as a ground for industrial or residential construction and
transport infrastructure.
Nowadays increasing attention is given to environmental functions of soils.
In our analysis they were represented by habitat (biodiversity), buffering and
retention functions. Habitat function is related to the role of soil in functioning of
non-agricultural ecosystems and ensuring biodiversity of landscape. Buffering
function of soil controls migration of contaminants in the environment. Sorption of
organic contaminants or metals in soil protects against the contaminants transfer to
biotic and abiotic components of ecosystem. Retention function is responsible for
holding water in a soil profile and limiting risk of flood after heavy or long-lasting
rains. Movement of contaminants and nutrients in profile of soil with high water
holding capacity is slower since such soil reaches the full saturation much later.
The functions were ranked by the participants in scale from 9 to 1 with the
assumption that each score may appear only once. Score 9 meant the most important
soil function for the local conditions. The following functions were scored: cultural
heritage (SOC-1), recreation (SOC-2), health (SOC-3), land based production
(agricultural) (ECO-1), transport infrastructure (ECO-2), housing and workplace
provision (ECO-3), biodiversity (ENV-1), retention (ENV-2), buffering and filtering
(ENV-3).
Three scenarios representing different soil protection approaches were
proposed to be assessed regarding their impacts on the soil functions in long-term
perspective. They basically reflected the following criteria:
Scenario 1 (the baseline scenario)
It assumed that nothing would change in regulations concerning soil protection. Soil
protection efficiency remains at the present level.
Scenario 2 (moderate protection)
City planners have to take into account the quality of soils and constructions can be
placed on low and medium quality soils mainly.
Scenario 3 (strong protection)
163
Construction is placed on brownfields and low quality soils; if more area is needed
construction can be placed on medium but more open space needs to be planned in
these zones.
In the subsequent part of the meeting the potential impact of these scenarios
on the soil functions was assessed. Each expert individually scored the potential
impacts of a given policy scenario on the soil function within the range: -3 to 3:
-3 (strongly negative impact), -2 (moderately negative impact), -1 (slightly negative
impact), 0 (no effect), 1 (slightly positive impact), 2 (moderately positive impact), 3
(strongly positive impact).
The last part of the meeting was aimed to discuss and set sustainability
limits for each soil function in the context of the particular city. The experts were
asked to consider what impact on a given function (expressed by the indicator)
within urbanization process, within range –3 to 3, can be accepted.
3. Results and Discussion
3.1. Trends of Soil Loss – Ex-post Assessment
It is essential to understand what is the rate and pattern of changes in land
use and how soil sealing affects the overall performance of the soil function within
the city area. Such an analysis is thought to raise awareness on trends of soil
consumption within urban development process and provide information on
effectiveness of the current soil protection measures. Soils differ in properties and,
thus, ability to fulfill such functions as retention, biodiversity, filtering, crop
productivity. Land use change size and pattern usually reflects a combination of the
geographic location, a specific setting of socioeconomic, historical and
environmental conditions and national or regional land/soil protection policies.
Therefore it is not practical to analyze these changes for the group of cities as a
whole, but instead analyzing them separately since the test areas represent different
mechanisms driving land conversion processes. It is well known that the size of
conversion of agricultural land into artificial surfaces such as into urban and
industrial/commercial units is mainly driven by population growth (both through
natural growth and migrations) as well as GDP whereas the spatial sprawl of urban
fabrics is partly an independent process and partly is steered by spatial planning.
The area sealed within 15 y period in the test areas ranged from 160 to 780
ha. The data provided here may be somewhat different from the official statistics that
use different methodologies. Our study utilized satellite images for detection of land
use changes – such a method is burdened with a dose of uncertainty. However the
advantage of the applied approach is that it enables analysis of spatial trends of land
use change and their linkage to soil quality information.
The expansion of artificial surfaces took place mostly on arable lands, except
Wroclaw and Stuttgart where semi-natural areas were also sealed substantially. New
artificial surfaces mostly comprised with residential fabrics, however in some cities
(Bratislava and Vienna) development of industrial and commercial constructions was
predominant.
It is evident in the light of this study that the best soils are efficiently protected in
Bratislava. The share of best soils in newly urbanized areas is in Bratislava 5 times
164
smaller than their share in total area – TI=0.2 for the high quality soils. It is assumed
that the regulations present in Slovakia help to protect the most valuable soils. The
soils classified as high quality in our assessment are covered by a fee payment
system (1-4 classes from total 9). Transformation of these agricultural lands into
other purposes is loaded with obligatory payment with a range of payment from 6 to
15 EUR per square meter. The similar system had existed in Poland until 2008.
However this practice did not ensure the efficient protection of most valuable soils in
Wroclaw. In Stuttgart and Milan the consumption of high quality soils was rather
proportional to their share in the total soil pool. The assessments performed for
Wroclaw, Prague, Vienna and Salzburg revealed negative trends of preferential use
of the most valuable soils. It must be noted that the analysis of soil protection
efficiency refers to the period between early nineties to 2006/2007, thus it assesses
the regulations existing within this period. It should not be referred to the soil
management systems introduced recently.
The similar analytical approach as presented in this report can be used for
testing how urban growth alters degradation processes (e.g. erosion, contamination)
and affects soil function performance (organic matter accumulation, retention
potential, buffering capacity) if such spatial information layers are employed in the
assessment.
A comparison of a sealing rate within last 15 years and availability of low
and medium quality soils indicates that there is no strong conflict between soil
protection goals and development needs of the cities (Table 1). Such competition
may exist locally but, considering this in context of overall city area, the pool of
available low and medium quality soils is, for most cities, much greater than land
demand for the city development (industry, commerce, transport infrastructure, sport
facilities, etc.). This demand is measured by the rate of land transformation into
artificial surfaces within last 15 years.
Table 1. Comparison of soil availability and land demand in the test areas.
Test area Low quality Low and medium Land demand3
1 2
soils quality soils
Milan 160 3103 364
Bratislava 3033 8941 391
Wroclaw 5547 7806 412
Stuttgart 706 1693 138
Prague 6863 18825 718
Salzburg 791 5601 82
Vienna 418 1850 213
1
soils belonging to low quality agricultural lands (arable and grasslands) within areas
covered by the soil maps
2
soils belonging to low and medium quality agricultural lands (arable and grasslands)
within area covered by the soil maps
3
rate of artificial surface increase within 15 years in the area covered by the soil maps
165
3.2. Forecast of Soil Consumption up to 2030
Table 2 summarizes the forecasted Transition Indexes for high, medium and
low quality soils in the test cities. Information provided by these statistics informs on
potential allocation of artificial surfaces when no particular protection of valuable
soils is present. In such case urban fabrics appear in most attractive locations in terms
of distance to transport network and other types of land use and slope. The scenario
with no particular protection instruments would result in continuation of non-
sustainable soil management in the cities.
Table 2. Transition Indexes for soil consumption in cities of Central Europe
forecasted for ‘no protection scenario’
soil Wroclaw Prague Bratislava Milan Vienna Stuttgart Salzburg
quality
class
high 0.86 0.86 0.63 0.59 0.65 1.04 1.25
medium 0.75 1.03 1.74 1.04 1.34 0.64 0.82
low 1.19 0.97 0.75 3.47 0.72 0.87 1.70
The transition indexes for simulated spatial sealing are compared to the
similar indexes calculated for historical data on urbanization in each city (Figure 3).
The TI’s for high quality soils are in the ‘no protection scenario’ somewhat lower
than in the past period, except Bratislava and Stuttgart. The most likely reason is
drainage of stock of high quality soils in areas most attractive for built up. However
the TI’s would still remain at level near 1, which number must be treated as
indicative of non-sustainable soil management.
Figure 3. Comparison of the Transition Indexes (TI) for historical and forecasted
sealing of high quality soils
166
3.3. Stakeholder Inclusive Impact Assessment of Soil Protection Scenarios
The approach of the impact assessment presented here involves participation
of local stakeholders and is based on collecting their opinions on possible
urbanization consequences. In general two economic soil functions ‘Housing and
workplace provision’ and ‘Transport infrastructure’ were set as most important by
the stakeholders. These circumstances make soil protection activities even more
important. All environmental soil functions were classified as important to protect in
all cities. The baseline scenario was assessed as favorable to economic functions
‘Housing and workplace provision’ and ‘Transport infrastructure’ whereas all
environmental functions were deemed as threatened. Medium soil protection (no
sealing on high quality soils) would basically sustain the soil environmental
functions at the current level. The very important observation is that certain
strengthening of soil protection (medium soil protection) would not restrict
infrastructure and housing/industry construction below the limit acceptable by the
local stakeholders (Figure 4). Exclusion of both medium and high quality soils from
sealing (strong protection scenario) would be, according to the stakeholders,
unacceptable obstacle for development of housing and workplace sector. However,
this extreme scenario would highly improve the environmental soil functions. There
is a general demand for improvement of soil environmental functions, such as
retention, biodiversity and buffering, in the pilot cities.
Figure 4. The average impact (across all cities) of soil protection scenarios on social,
economic and environmental soil functions. Bubble size represents the average
(across all cities) importance of the soil function. Rhombus represents the
sustainability limit
167
4. Conclusions
Expansion of artificial surfaces in the test areas took place mostly on arable
lands. High quality soils were efficiently protected in Bratislava which, at least
partly, might be the effect of the fee payment system. The most valuable soils were
preferentially taken for urbanization in Vienna, Wroclaw, Prague and Salzburg while
in Stuttgart and Milan their consumption was proportional to their share in total area.
Soil management systems in these cities did not efficiently protect the best soils until
2006. Interestingly, there is no strong conflict between soil protection goals and
demand for land related to economic development of cities. The pool of available
low and medium quality soils is much grater than the land demand for urbanization.
According to the cellular automata modeling, the baseline scenario,
assuming no system for protection of most valuable soils, would result in
continuation of non-sustainable soil transformation trends. If spatial distribution of
valuable soils favors their sealing (located in attractive sites) more intervention
policy is needed to protect best soils under moderate protection scenarios. There is a
need for involving more detailed soil data in impact assessments of different soil
protection scenarios and real soil management practices.
The participatory impact assessment revealed that in all the cities
continuation of current soil protection regulations would lead to loss of all
environmental soil functions. Economic functions were set as key issues for city
development which makes awareness of soil role even more important. Better
protection of soils is required to sustain or improve the quality of life in the cities.
There is an expectation of stakeholders for improvement of environment status in the
pilot cities. According to stakeholders – strengthening of soil protection (medium
protection scenario) would not limit the economic development (land availability for
new industrial and transport constructions)
Acknowledgments. The presented work was performed within Urban Soil
Management Strategy project funded by the CENTRAL EUROPE programme
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