ANALISI DI LUNGO PERIODO DELLA TRASFORMAZIONE DEL PAESAGGIO FORESTALE NELL’AREA METROPOLITANA DI ROMA CAPITALE A SUPPORTO DELLA GOVERNANCE DEL TERRITORIO PER LA TRANSIZIONE ECOLOGICA

Abstract

Restoring the forest ecosystem’s functionality is as an urgent action for biodiversity conservation and carbon mitigation as well as for achieving the 2030 Agenda of United Nations sustainability goals. By developing a landscape dynamics framework to guide future management and planning policies we characterised the historical trend of forest area changes from 1936 to 2010 in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital (Italy). Remote sensing-based products and historical forest maps, coupled with landscape pattern metrics and fragmentation analysis have been implemented. Two main forest landscape dynamics were reconstructed: I) the increase of forest cover fragmentation in the lowland areas; (II) the rise in forest area by recently established forest in the interior sectors of the mountain landscape, mainly within protected areas. Results revealed the urgent need to establish new protected areas and rewilding spaces. The proposed framework can be used for testing the effectiveness of environmental planning and management in other forest landscapes to achieve the Agenda 2030 goals and EU 2030 Biodiversity Strategy.