Exurban Development and Landscape Diversification in a Mediterranean Suburban Area

This study explores the relationship between landscape diversification and exurban development in a mono-centric compact urban region in transition toward a more diffused (and possibly polycentric) form. Based on the spatial distribution of seven land-use classes derived from comparable digital maps for 1975, 1990, 2000 and 2009, a spatial analysis integrated with correlation and multivariate statistical techniques was developed to verify if exurban development influenced landscape composition and structure in Attica, the region where Athens, the capital of Greece, is located. Results showed the different land-use distributions before and after dispersed urban expansion. Both urban areas and bare land increased rapidly during the last 35 years with implications for landscape quality and diversity. To the contrary, rainfed cropland and sparsely vegetated areas experienced the highest probability to edification. At the regional scale, the landscape diversification index decreased weakly over time while increasing the positive correlation with the distance from the city center. As an indirect effect of dispersed urbanization, the highest contribution to landscape diversity came from forests and natural areas and from the agricultural mosaic and cropland respectively in 1975 and 2009. The analysis illustrates how containing changes in land-use can be a target for policies mitigating landscape fragmentation in expanding urban regions.