The assessment and management of landscape fragmentation (LF), i.e., the subdivision of the habitat into smaller and more isolated patches, can benefit from the adoption of a composite indicator explaining, in a unique measure, the various concerns involved. However, the use of composite indicators may be affected by lack of data, subjectivity in algorithm design, and oversimplification connected to reduction to just one index. In these cases, the findings obtained might not provide the researcher with reliable information. In this paper, we design and apply the Composite Indicator of Landscape Fragmentation (CILF), a metric resuming three indicators concerning the effect on LF of transport and mobility infrastructures, human settlements, and patch density per se. The application concerns the measurement of LF spatial pattern and dynamics from 2003 to 2008 of 51 landscape units in the island of Sardinia (Italy). We considered a complete spatial data set, chose the generalized geometric mean as aggregation algorithm, and verified its robustness via sensitivity analysis of the results. We found that, in 2003 and 2008, the CILF spatial pattern shows higher values in coastal areas and has varied randomly, i.e., without a consistent tendency to converge to, or diverge from, a mean value. Overall, we demonstrate that the CILF is a powerful instrument for monitoring LF in Sardinia and advocate that it can be further implemented, following the same methodological framework, by extending the pool of indicators considered and assessing a weighted version of the composite indicator.

The distribution of services across a territory generates daily commuting flows, which have a significant influence on the development of the territory and often causes congestion in large areas. This negatively affects the environmental, economic and social components of the metropolitan landscape. Using the graph theory, we constructed and analyzed various (in typologies of transportation and moving time) flow networks in the two main Italian metropolitan areas: Rome (MCR) and Milan (MCM). The analysis of these networks provided us with strategic information on the dynamics of the two urban macro-systems. In particular, the aim of our study was to: (i) identify the characteristics, distribution and direction of the main attractive forces within the regional systems under study; (ii) identify the main differences in size and structure of commuter networks between the two metropolitan areas and between the two regional systems that include the two mother cities; and, (iii) identify the main differences in the size and structure of the two commuting networks by transport modes (private, public, non-motorized mobility) and the travel time. The results highlighted significant differences between the two case studies regarding volume flows, complexity and structure networks, and the spatial extension of the territories that are governed by the two metropolitan areas. MCR is a strongly monocentric urban system with a regional influence centred on the mother city of Rome, while MCM is a diffused polycentric regional metropolitan system centred on multiple mother cities. The findings many have a role in urban planning choices and in the evaluation of policies aimed to favor sustainable mobility.