Coastal roads as a socio-ecological transition tool for fragile coastal territories

Abstract

The presented research focuses on the “road space” as the "main everyday life infrastructure " and a crucial element for the socio-ecological transition of territories.  Considering the pervasiveness of the road as a continuous artifact that characterizes the physical environment of our daily life, we believe that through its reinterpretation it is possible to pay attention to the quality of life and to the ecological and social transition of the whole territory. 

This research hypothesis was referred in particular to the Italian coastal areas that can be considered most vulnerable to the anthropic pressure and the effects of climate change. The different fragilities and opportunities we consider find their location in the first coastline, in the different geomorphologic and settlement structures, crossed by the coastal freeway roads and the more urban roads, which are analysed within some significant buffers. 

Before the great reclamation of the Italian coastline in the early 20th century, for many Italian regions, the coast was a place from which the city kept a distance. Except for port cities and established tourist destinations, large portions of coastal territory were in fact a mosaic of natural and rural landscape, wetlands, forests and small villages.  Today, the European population living in coastal areas has more than doubled and the same trend - almost one third of the total - is also in Italy.

The concentration of population and economic activities along the coast has been, and still is, based on road transport. Lines, grids, combs of coastal roads have stiffened the coastline, reducing its natural thickness that governed the hydraulic regulation. A change in the biodiversity of  coastal territories is underway: rising average temperatures, rising average sea levels, an increasing frequency of extreme events, the accentuation of problems of eutrophication in coastal biological systems and of erosion in the more humanized ones.

In response to these climatic stresses, animal and plant species are changing their distribution in territories (habitat migrations) and a combination of phenomena leads to the decrease or disappearance of biological or economic productivity of the soil (desertification). This profoundly affects consolidated economies and consequently also the exposure to risk or migration of people. To these issues, which are characterised by the strong co-action of anthropogenic and natural determinants clinging to coastal roads - to which climate change contributes directly and indirectly - we turn our planning attention, looking firstly at the 'balance' of water and its interaction with the soil.

How can the local needs for accessibility and enjoyment of the coast be combined with the protection of the environment from climatic emergencies? How can the securing of the coastal territory from the impacts of climate change be based on timely maintenance and regeneration of the existing roads, car parks and open spaces along the coast? What tools do we need to build, to coordinate funds, master plans, projects?

Within this research framework, one of the main research goals is the construction of a trans-disciplinary Atlas, which relates coastal roads with environmental, demographic, and socio-economic issues, describing quantitative and qualitative aspects and showing criticalities and potentialities of the different territorial contexts. The atlas is proposed as a trans-disciplinary operational tool for interpretations on a national scale, and later also, on a specific places and relevant study cases, useful to orient policies and projects towards systemic knowledge and actions, to highlight the potential for new re-writes. 

Note: The research is carried out by the author within the DAStU of the Politecnico di Milano and ESF REACT-EU ministerial program, referred to the green transition and the mitigation of climate change impacts, in cooperation with Tranform Transport and MAUDLAB.