Objective The conceptual rural/urban area definitions can be divided into two main categories based on whether they favour spatial (population and settlement density characteristics based on population and/or land use/cover data, and relative-location characteristics) or non-spatial properties (demographical, social, cultural, economic and ecological characteristics). Policy related definitions evolve together with their main objectives. With the recent increasing integration of environmental concerns into most of the (EU) policies and the growing availability of spatial data on the environment (associated with information technology advancement), a number of initiatives have been launched to develop environmental indicators for policy impact evaluation, with many of them being based on spatial data (e.g. Corine Land Cover), including the ones for alternative rural/urban area definition development. The main objective of the project is to develop methodology for quantification of settlement system morphometric attributes indicating rurality/urbanity based on land cover spatial structure data and population spatial distribution data. While it will be applied to most of the European territory, some smaller model areas will be selected within Europe for specific applications (e.g. finer/coarser scale effect testing). Rurality/urbanity assessment will take into account not only the composition, but also the configuration component of land cover structure. This will be accomplished through application of some known as well as new landscape metrics / spatial pattern metrics. Additional purpose suited metrics will be developed (using e.g. Nearest Neighbour Index, Ripley's K, Moran Correlogram) capable of measuring the intensity of dispersion at different scales. The impact of each of the land cover structure component will be assessed with expert method. In the process, the issue of scale will be of major interest (e.g. upscaling/downscaling, convolution/deconvolution). Fields of science natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencessoil sciencesland-based treatment Keywords Environmental policies Geographical information science Human geography Land use/cover Landscape metrics Rural Scale Settlement system Spatial planning urban and regional development policies Programme(s) FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) PEOPLE-2007-2-1.IEF - Marie Curie Action: "Intra-European Fellowships for Career Development" Call for proposal FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF) Coordinator UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON EU contribution € 178 307,05 Address Highfield SO17 1BJ Southampton United Kingdom See on map Region South East (England) Hampshire and Isle of Wight Southampton Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Administrative Contact Amanda Coe (Ms.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Total cost No data
