An inventory of artificial and natural urban and periurban forest in Lombardy Region (EMoNFUr Project, LIFE+ 10/ENV/IT/399)

In the last thirty years, there has been a considerable amount of afforestation in Lombardy Region, Italy and in other European countries. Newly created woodlands have  usually been planted on agricultural lands, and on former industrial or degraded areas. Those forests near urban and peri-urban areas play an important role in enhancing biodiversity and environmental and social services.

We will describe the EMoNFUr Project's development of an inventory of naturally-regenerated and planted urban and peri-urban forests in Lombardy Region and present the first results and products of inventory activities.

The project group initially developed definitions of urban and peri-urban concepts from reviewing different studies and applications, e.g. the MOLAND model (Joint Research Centre, 2004).

After this phase, the project group devised a working methodology to: identify the urban and peri-urban area; create a regional inventory; create a regional register only of planted forests that occurred in the last 30 years in Lombardy Region.

The production of the inventory and especially of the regional register of planted forests is being achieved with the involvement of stakeholders at regional, provincial and municipal levels, as well as other organisations that play an important role in the acquisition of information.

A Geographic Information System (GIS) will use inventory and regional register of afforestations data to create and maintain a range of maps that will provide a dynamic, holistic picture representative of the resource. Standardization of data collection has evolved during the phases of the work.

We will present the purposes, methods and preliminary results of the inventory of naturally-regenerated and planted urban and peri-urban forests in Lombardy Region and the first analyses of the spatial structure of these forests.