The rising environmental issues on contemporary cities urgently calls for sustainable planning policies. Implementation of nature-based solutions, ecosystem services, and green infrastructures associated to green spaces management is at present of paramount importance. In contrast to policies mainly focused on public greenery, the inclusion of private green in planning strategies might be a promising pathway. The general aim is mapping and classifying urban green spaces in Padua, a city of 93.3 km² (Northeast Italy). Specific aims are (i) testing an NDVI-derived extraction from very high-resolution orthophotos; (ii) classifying property status; (iii) highlighting multilevel relationships and strategies for urban green spaces implementation and management; (iv) assessing greenery in relation to per capita population. By performing remote sensing and GIS analyses, a first detailed global map of urban green spaces in Padua was created; then, binary classification and thematic maps for rural/non-rural, public/private, municipal/non-municipal greenery were produced for all urban units. Results show that, among total green spaces (52.23 km²), more than half are rural. Moreover, private green spaces represent 80%, while within public areas (20%) less than 10% are municipal (5 km²). We therefore highlight scenarios for planning policies in Padua by providing tools to policymakers for an integrated management of green spaces, where private greenery might also contribute to ecosystem services implementation for common urban well-being.

Focusing on a sustainable and strategic urban development, local governments and public administrations, such as the Veneto Region in Italy, are increasingly addressing their urban and territorial planning to meet national and European policies, along with the principles and goals of the 2030 Agenda for the Sustainable Development. In this regard, we aim at testing a methodology based on a semi-automatic approach able to extract the spatial extent of urban areas, referred to as “urban footprint”, from satellite data. In particular, we exploited Sentinel-1 radar imagery through multitemporal analysis of interferometric coherence as well as supervised and non-supervised classification algorithms. Lastly, we compared the results with the land cover map of the Veneto Region for accuracy assessments. Once properly processed and classified, the radar images resulted in high accuracy values, with an overall accuracy ranging between 85% and 90% and percentages of urban footprint differing by less than 1%–2% with respect to the values extracted from the reference land cover map. These results provide not only a reliable and useful support for strategic urban planning and monitoring, but also potentially identify a solid organizational dataflow process to prepare geographic indicators that will help answering the needs of the 2030 Agenda (in particular the goal 11 “Sustainable Cities and Communities”).

Over the last few years, soil sealing has been recognized as one of the major threats in terms of soil degradation and loss of ecosystem services. Although many efforts have been promoted to increase the awareness of safeguarding soil for stakeholders, its value as a non-renewable resource as well as soil-related services in urban ecosystems is not implemented enough in urban planning and policies. Due to the spatially explicit component and the geographical scale of soil sealing, mapping and quantifying the number of sealed surfaces is crucial. The aim of this paper was to estimate and geovisualize the soil sealed in the city of Padua (Italy) at a very detailed scale, testing the use of the Biotope Area Factor (BAF) index. Moreover, the paper aimed to simulate an alternative mitigation scenario in a specific study area of the city. Spatial analysis was performed testing the BAF index in a Geographic Information Sistem (GIS) environment and using aerial ortho-photos at very high resolution. The results show different values of the BAF index for all four neighborhoods from 0.35 to 0.69. In the mitigation scenario, the value of the BAF index was improved using a measure of green roofs. In conclusion, the paper provides an insightful case study for enriching the debate about soil sealing and gives scientific support for sustainable urban planning.

Soil sealing is a worldwide phenomenon of covering of natural or seminatural soil with impervious surfaces, such as built-up or paved surfaces. It is widely recognized as a major environmental issue which drives landscape fragmentation and ecosystem services degradation and loss. Italy is one of European countries with the highest extent of soil sealing. The most affected area is northern Italy, especially the Po Valley with more than 12% of sealed surfaces. According to official data, Veneto Region and the city of Padua are seriously affected by this phenomenon. The Biotope Area Factor is a consolidated ecological urban index for mapping soil sealing, adopted in different European cities to support urban planning; it expresses the ratio of the ecologically effective surface area in relation to the total land area according to land cover classes. The general aim of this study is to map and to assess soil sealing in the whole municipal territory of Padua using the Biotope Area Factor (BAF) index. We tested and adopted a digital land cover map together with aerial images to perform a BAF analysis on the whole municipal territory of Padua. By using sample areas previously analyzed, we validated our source data by a double spatial validation process; therefore, soil sealing analysis was scaled-up to the municipality territory. Results show that in the city of Padua, the average BAF index value is 0.6; totally permeable surfaces (BAF = 1) cover 59.5%, whereas totally “sealed” surfaces (BAF = 0) are 40.3% of the municipal territory (93 km²). Most of the sealed soil is located in the east sector and in the historical core of the city, with BAF values ranging from 0 to 0.2. A particularly critical area is identified within the new industrial area of the city, which is strongly affected by soil sealing. BAF maps are useful tools to identify critical areas by geovisualizing surface permeability at a very detailed scale and by enabling further analyses for hydrogeological risk assessment and urban climate regulation. Moreover, the use of BAF maps at urban scale today represent an important tool for urban management, especially for policy makers who are planning mitigation and compensation measures to control soil sealing.

The purpose of this research was to critically analyze the social license to operate (SLO) for an oil company operating in Block 10, an oil concession located in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The specific study area is an important biodiversity hotspot, inhabited by indigenous villages. A mixed-methods approach was used to support a deeper understanding of SLO, grounded in participants’ direct experience. Semi-structured interviews (N = 53) were conducted with village leaders and members, indigenous associations, State institutions, and oil company staff, while household surveys were conducted with village residents (N = 346). The qualitative data informed a modified version of Moffat and Zhang’s SLO model, which was tested through structural equation modelling (SEM) analyses. Compared to the reference model, our findings revealed a more crucial role of procedural fairness in building community trust, as well as acceptance and approval of the company. Procedural fairness was found to be central in mediating the relationship between trust and the effects of essential services provided by the company (medical assistance, education, house availability) and sources of livelihoods (i.e., fishing, hunting, harvesting, cultivating, and waterway quality). The main results suggested that the concept of SLO may not appropriately apply without taking into account a community’s autonomy to decline company operation. To enhance procedural fairness and respect for the right of community self-determination, companies may need to consider the following: Establishing a meaningful and transparent dialogue with the local community; engaging the community in decision-making processes; enhancing fair distribution of project benefits; and properly addressing community concerns, even in the form of protests. The respect of the free prior informed consent procedure is also needed, through the collaboration of both the State and companies. The reduction of community dependence on companies (e.g., through the presence of developmental alternatives to oil extraction) is another important requirement to support an authentic SLO in the study area.

In the Amazon Rainforest, a unique post-carbon plan to mitigate global warming and to protect the exceptional bio-cultural diversity was experimented in 2007–2013 by the Ecuadorian government. To preserve the rainforest ecosystems within the Yasuní-ITT oil block, the release of 410 million metric tons of CO₂ would have been avoided. The neologism “yasunization” emerged as an Amazonian narrative on “unburnable carbon” to be replicated worldwide. Considering the unburnable carbon, petroleum-associated gas flaring represents the unleakable part. Flaring is an irrational practice that consists of burning waste gases, representing not only a leak of energy but also a pollution source. The general aim of the paper is to monitor gas flaring as a tool, revealing, at the same time, the implementation of environmental technologies in the oil sector and the compliance of sustainable policies in the Amazon region and the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve. Specific objectives are: (i) identifying and estimating gas flaring over seven years (2012–2018); (ii) mapping new flaring sites; iii) estimating potentially affected areas among ecosystems and local communities. We processed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Nightfire annual dataset, based on the elaboration of imagery from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and developed a GIS-based novel simple method to identify new flaring sites from daily detections. We found that 23.5% of gas flaring sites and 18.4% of volumes of all oil industries operating in Ecuador are located within the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve (YBR). Moreover, we detected 34 additional flaring sites not included in the NOAA dataset—12 in the YBR and one in Tiputini field, a key area for biological and cultural diversity conservation. We also found that at least 10 indigenous communities, 18 populated centers and 10 schools are located in the potentially affected area. Gas flaring can be used as a policy indicator to monitor the implementation of sustainable development practices in complex territories.