Exploring the relationship among local conflicts and territorial vulnerability: The case study of Lombardy Region

During the last 10 years, opposition by local communities against the development of industrial facilities, energy technologies and transport infrastructures has steadily grown. Negative externalities on the environment, quality of life and health are the most frequent motivations of the opponents. Disputes are typically grounded in environmental, social and economic concerns about the local impacts of new development proposals. Within this context, this paper aims to explore the existence of a potential relationship between the level of territorial vulnerability and the distribution of local conflicts surveyed by the local and national press in the Lombardy Region (Italy). This type of relationship is investigated using an empirical analysis based on an overlay mapping of different informative layers. The vulnerability index has been calculated according to the most recent conceptual and analytical frameworks developed in the scientific literature. It is a multidimensional index grounded in environmental, social and economic criteria. The outputs of the vulnerability assessment have been placed into thematic maps to provide a comprehensive overview of the environmental and socioeconomic state of the Lombardy Region. In addition to the general degree of vulnerability, the maps display the local conflicts surveyed by the NIMBY Forum, an Italian survey of territorial disputes managed by the Agency of Research and Information Society. The maps provide a means of i) putting forward some hypotheses about the oppositions that have emerged around the localization of new facilities, including mainly industrial facilities, waste disposals, energy plants and transport infrastructures, and the vulnerability of the Lombardy Region; ii) identifying the driving factors of territorial vulnerability; iii) investigating whether the local oppositions are directly proportional to territorial vulnerability. The first results indicate that a direct relationship among territorial vulnerability and conflicts does not exist. This outcome, even on a preliminary basis, provides a new analytical perspective for understanding the reasons behind local community protests.

[1]  Elizabeth R. Smith,et al.  Using Science to Assess Environmental Vulnerabilities , 2004, Environmental monitoring and assessment.

[2]  A. Torre,et al.  Conflicts over farmland uses and the dynamics of “agri-urban” localities in the Greater Paris Region: An empirical analysis based on daily regional press and field interviews , 2013 .

[3]  Felix Rauschmayer,et al.  Evaluating deliberative and analytical methods for the resolution of environmental conflicts , 2006 .

[4]  Elizabeth R. Smith,et al.  Guidelines to Assessing Regional Vulnerabilities , 2009 .

[5]  Jerry T. Mitchell,et al.  Revealing the Vulnerability of People and Places: A Case Study of Georgetown County, South Carolina , 2000 .

[6]  R. Hessel,et al.  Linking participatory and GIS-based land use planning methods: A case study from Burkina Faso , 2009 .

[7]  R Titomanlio.  Procedure di consultazione e potere normativo dell'Autorità per l'energia elettrica e il gas (Aeeg) , 2012 .

[8]  N. Georgescu-Roegen.  The Entropy Law and the Economic Process , 1973 .

[9]  Forster Ndubisi,et al.  Ecological Planning: A Historical and Comparative Synthesis , 2002 .

[10]  M. Rounsevell,et al.  The vulnerability of ecosystem services to land use change , 2006 .

[11]  H. Wittmer,et al.  How to select instruments for the resolution of environmental conflicts , 2006 .

[12]  K. Boulding.  The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth , 2013 .

[13]  Janet Willars,et al.  The effect of vaginal closure technique on early post-operative pain following vaginal prolapse surgery: a feasibility pilot study and qualitative assessment , 2014, SpringerPlus.

[14]  M. Golobič,et al.  Landscape Planning and Vulnerability Assessment in the Mediterranean Thematic Study Landscape Planning and Vulnerability Assessment in the Mediterranean Thematic Study Landscape Planning and Vulnerability Assessment in the Mediterranean Final Report Regional Activity Centre for the Priority Actions , 2022 .

[15]  R. O'Neill,et al.  The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital , 1997, Nature.

[16]  P. Harrison,et al.  Assessing the vulnerability of agricultural land use and species to climate change and the role of policy in facilitating adaptation , 2006 .

[17]  Carissa Schively,et al.  Understanding the NIMBY and LULU Phenomena: Reassessing Our Knowledge Base and Informing Future Research , 2007 .

[18]  Robert V. O'Neill,et al.  Spatial pattern of environmental vulnerability in the Mid-Atlantic region, USA ☆ , 2010 .

[19]  Daniela Molinari,et al.  Assessing multifaceted vulnerability and resilience in order to design risk-mitigation strategies , 2012, Natural Hazards.

[20]  Bengt Johansson,et al.  Siting conflicts between wind power and military aviation—Problems and potential solutions , 2013 .

[21]  E. Mishan.  Reflections on Recent Developments in the Concept of External Effects , 1965 .

[22]  M. Zamorano,et al.  Determining Vulnerability Importance in Environmental Impact Assessment: The case of Colombia , 2012 .

[23]  W. L. Shirley,et al.  Social Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards , 2003 .

[24]  R. Kasperson,et al.  A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science , 2003, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[25]  Thierry Kirat,et al.  Identifying and measuring land-use and proximity conflicts: methods and identification , 2014, SpringerPlus.

[26]  H. Saarikoski,et al.  Understanding ‘successful’ conflict resolution: Policy regime changes and new interactive arenas in the Great Bear Rainforest , 2013 .

[27]  A. Torre,et al.  Proximity analysis of inefficient practices and socio-spatial negligence: Evidence, evaluations and recommendations drawn from the construction of Chotiari reservoir in Pakistan , 2014 .

[28]  Chiara Mazzocchi,et al.  Land use conversion in metropolitan areas and the permanence of agriculture: Sensitivity Index of Agricultural Land (SIAL), a tool for territorial analysis , 2013 .

[29]  R. D. Groot,et al.  A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services , 2002 .

[30]  Gavin Hilson,et al.  An overview of land use conflicts in mining communities , 2002 .

[31]  Å. Ode,et al.  Public evaluation of landscape content and change: several examples from Europe. , 2009 .

[32]  Douglas C. Baker,et al.  Will the application of spatial multi criteria evaluation technique enhance the quality of decision-making to resolve boundary conflicts in the Philippines? , 2013 .