Mapping Relations Transformation of Urban and Natural Landscape in Adriatic Cities Fostering Landscape Sustainability and Promoting Landscape Quality as Spatial Planning Objectives

Abstract

The understanding of urban and natural landscape relation as a multidimensional process integrates spatial, functional, and perceptive dimensions, temporal, and holistic principles. The interconnections of the urban development processes and natural landscape transformations prove the changeability process of the landscape relation. Spatial problems of extensive urban spread into natural resources indicate the disrupted relation of the urban and natural landscape that is a non-renewable resource and heritage asset. In the specific context of the Adriatic, these spatial problems are further intensified in cities settled between two strong natural elements - the sea and the mountain. The research aims to investigate how spatial planning guides and anticipates the changeability process of landscape relations in case cities of the West and East Adriatic Coast. The Heritage Urbanism approach is complemented by the Urbanscape Emanation layer concept in mapping identity factors and evaluation criteria for enhancement models of the urban and natural landscape relation. The overlapping layers of urban dispersion patterns and natural networks of the example cities (36) settled between the Adriatic Sea and the mountain hinter-land of Apennines and Dinarides result in establishing relation models and problems of the urban and natural landscape. Different use of sustainability in spatial planning practices of representative cities (3) from Italy, Croatia, and Montenegro are compared to conclude spatial planning objectives for fostering landscape transformations. Spatial planning knowledge and techniques can improve only when landscape transformations, interconnections, sustainability, quality, and education are integrated as spatial planning objectives in enhancing relations of urban and natural landscape.