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SEA for Sustainable Cities: How the Strategic Environmental Assessment Has Driven the ESI Programme Towards Urban Sustainability

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Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions (SSPCR 2017)

Part of the book series: Green Energy and Technology ((GREEN))

Abstract

Under Cohesion Policy, sustainable development is implemented at the territorial level through the five European Structural and Investment funds (ESIF). Among the uses for these funds, during the 2014–2020 period the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) key priority areas include issues such as energy, transport, climate change adaptation and green infrastructure, all of which relate to sustainable cities. In this framework, the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) procedure, carried out in the programming phase, is an important tool in driving ERDF Operational Programmes (OPs) towards sustainability. In this work, we examine 20 ERDF Italian program 2014–2020 and some related SEA Environmental reports to understand how much the theme of sustainable cities has been considered and how far SEA procedures have contributed to urban sustainability planning in local development strategies. Illustrations are given of sustainable approaches adopted in the OPs and SEA reports. Moreover, the analysis identifies recommendations to improve integration of the theme into the current and following programming periods.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ancona, Italy

    Gaia Galassi, François Levarlet & Elodie Lorgeoux

Authors
  1. Gaia Galassi
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  2. François Levarlet
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  3. Elodie Lorgeoux
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to François Levarlet .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. EURAC Research, Bolzano, Italy

    Adriano Bisello

  2. EURAC Research, Bolzano, Italy

    Daniele Vettorato

  3. Foundation for the Urban Environment, Kortenberg, Belgium

    Pierre Laconte

  4. Costa & Partners Consulting sprl, Brussels, Belgium

    Simona Costa

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Figs. 1, 2 and Table 1.

Appendix 2

See Figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Financial allocation for urban sustainability in Italian ERDF Operational Programmes 2014–2010 (see Sect. 2 for the method)

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Fig. 4
figure 4

Artificial surface according to the Corine Land Cover database (http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/). The area pertain to CLC class 1—artificial surface. Metropolitan areas and metropolitan cities are also shown (the area of metropolitan cities is delineated by the province area)

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Fig. 5
figure 5

Source Elaboration on ISTAT (National Institute of Statistic) data for the year 2016

Inhabitants at municipality level.

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Fig. 6
figure 6

Source Elaboration on ISTAT (National Institute of Statistic) data for the year 2016

Occupancy rate per province.

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Fig. 7
figure 7

Source Elaboration on ISTAT (National Institute of Statistic) data for the year 2016

Foreign residents per municipality.

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Fig. 8
figure 8

Source Elaboration on ISTAT (National Institute of Statistic) data for the year 2014

Seat kilometers per capita and expenditure for local public transport at province level.

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Galassi, G., Levarlet, F., Lorgeoux, E. (2018). SEA for Sustainable Cities: How the Strategic Environmental Assessment Has Driven the ESI Programme Towards Urban Sustainability. In: Bisello, A., Vettorato, D., Laconte, P., Costa, S. (eds) Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions. SSPCR 2017. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75774-2_31

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75774-2_31

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-75773-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-75774-2

  • eBook Packages: EnergyEnergy (R0)

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