The IAFOR Journal of
Sustainability, Energy & the Environment
Volume 3 – Issue – I

The IAFOR Journal of
Sustainability, Energy & the Environment
Volume 3 – Issue – I

The IAFOR Journal of
Sustainability, Energy & the Environment
Volume 3 – Issue – I

With the aim to test the categorical formulation of a spatial concept on the functional,
desirable characteristics of land-use distributions inside periurban landscapes, in the
research we envisaged and developed an original quantitative method, deployed in
nine study-cases worldwide.

Increasingly facing a generic set of pressures from suburbanization and unregulated
land-use change, unwanted spatial outcomes in those landscapes often arise after
trespassing critical thresholds of ecosystems’ processes inadvertently: Overriding the
minimum-area requirements, for example, of crucial ecosystems providing basic
ecological services to whole urban regions.

Spatial concepts can be powerful tools for strategic planning of territorial systems,
helping to avoid shortsighted plans and policies. From the narrative of a spatial
concept supportive of strategic planning and regulatory policies for territorial
sustainability (the “Aggregates-with-Outliers” -AWO), we developed an original
synthetic, quantitative method fostering statistical analysis between diverse locales,
years, and scales -as well desirable scenarios.

From the joint maximization of size variance and land-use diversity (JMV+D model),
we evidenced deficits and potentials on the composition of heterogeneous periurban
landscapes, from the universal perspective of the concept. It is considered a tool
(among the many required) for the strategic planning of territorial sustainability in
those landscapes, especially required of a flexible definition on the desirable spatial
outcomes of plans and policies.

Keywords: Territorial Sustainability, Spatial concepts, Landscape analysis, Mosaic
heterogeneity

Alexandru-Ionuț Petrişor