SUITMA 2005 Cairo - Evaluation of urban soil quality for sustainable urban planning
SUITMA 2005 Cairo
| This abstract is about one of the papers of the Methodology and classification theme of the SUITMA 2005 symposium. |
| Borut Vrscaj,i,ii | Laura Poggio,i |
| Franco Ajmone-Marsan.i |
- i - Di.Va.P.R.A – Chimica Agraria, Università di Torino, Torino, Italy
- ii - Center for Soil and Environmental Science, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The urban sprawl represents one of the major soil-related threats in the world. Cities have limited physical space with the increasing number of inhabitants. Information on soil chemical and physical properties, soil quality, and consequently the functions the urban soils perform should play more significant role in urban management and planning processes. The aim of the EU Interreg III “Technique of Urban Soil Evaluation in urban areas – Implementation in Planning procedure” (TUSEC-IP) project is to design and test the procedures that can promote more rational and sustainable use of soil resources in the cities, and help to maintain the soil quality on the acceptable level. The developed procedure of soil evaluation concept is being tested in Grugliasco (Torino-Italy) area.
The procedure of urban soil quality assessment is based on the conclusion that the functions of soils performed in urban areas are altered compared to the agricultural environment - several primary soil functions can be truncated or modified. The soil quality in the procedure is evaluated regarding a) the particular land use; and b) the general environmental soil quality.
Main urban land-uses are grouped according to the specific functions and services the soils perform and according to the possible emissions from soils that may affect environmental quality. For each of the land-uses the vital soil functions are determined. They are further used to select appropriate set of chemical and physical soil parameters that have to be measured and used for further evaluation of the soil quality indicators. In the next step additional data on urban environment and soil quality indicators are inserted in the evaluation procedure to assess the a) soil suitability/soil quality for selected urban land-use; and b) to evaluate the decline/improvement in performance of the soil functions when land-use is changed.
The results of the evaluation procedure are a) a numerical index expressing the soil quality for each land-use, b) the comparison of the suitability of the area on the basis of the soil properties for the considered land uses, in order to suggest the most appropriate use of soils; and c) the identification of the soil properties/soil indicators which do not meet the legislation thresholds or the functional criteria. These indicators can serve the managing authorities as a suggestion for remediation measures.
Since the evaluation procedure itself represents a demanding task for non-soil experts (urban planners) it is supported by user-friendly computer application (an evaluation tool) and a set of accompanying documents: field urban soil description forms, step-by-step description of the procedure, list of required soil data and soil quality evaluation manual.
