Limit Land Take. A Matter of Thresholds?

Soil is a key element for achieving national and international sustainability objectives. However, the legislation in this field is still far from defining the limits of land take, without prejudice to the objective of zero net land consumption to be achieved by 2050. In Italy, the legislation on the subject is very varied. Among this work’s objectives is to identify the weaknesses and strengths on which to focus new policies and tools to control the land take. The definition of land take in the regional laws is often ambiguous, and the methods indicated for containment as well as for monitoring often appear to lack scientific basis. The most important problem the international community raises is the lack of proportionality between the variation of urbanization and that of population. As evidence of this, Agenda 2030 has developed, in the context of reaching the target 11.3 a specific index the “Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate” (LCRPGR) which aims to monitor the relationship between the scale of urban development and demography, to link the growth of urbanized parts to the real demographic dynamics that are found in the territory. The correct identification of threshold values now appears to be a viable solution for achieving the objectives set at the European level. The proposed work represents a first exercise in this direction. The comparison of the LCRPGR index with established indices of scientific literature (both of quality of life and of configurational analysis of urban spaces) could provide useful indications.