Analysis on the Metabolic Process of Urban Agglomeration and the Cooperative

Annex 1 First Annual Report China-Italy Bilateral Project "Analysis on the metabolic process of urban agglomeration and the cooperative strategy of circular economy" CUP: I56C17000020002 Institution: Università degli Studi di Napoli "Parthenope"/ Parthenope University of Naples Unit: Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie / Department of Science and Technology Project activities: WP1 and WP2 coordinated by Parthenope University Authors: Silvio Cristiano, Amalia Zucaro, Francesco Gonella, Stefano Dumontet, Sergio Ulgiati 1. Definition of the metropolitan geographical-administrative system boundaries The system boundaries of our case study correspond to the geographical-administrative borders of the Metropolitan City of Naples, Italy (Città metropolitana di Napoli). Located (Fig. 1) in Southern Italian region Campania, it is a mainly coastal area located around the Gulf of Naples in the Thyrrenian Sea, covering a surface of 1,179 km2, including five islands, and orographically characterised by the presence of some short coastal mountain reliefs as well as of the volcano Mount Vesuvius. The Metropolitan City of Naples has a resident population of 3,101,002 inhabitants (according to the Italian national statistics institute ISTAT – Istituto Nazionale di Statistica, 2018), with a population density equal to 2,630 inhabitants/km2. It is composed of 92 lower administrative bodies, known as comuni (municipalities), among which Naples (Napoli) represents the chief city: Acerra, Afragola, Agerola, Anacapri, Arzano, Bacoli, Barano d’Ischia, Boscoreale, Boscotrecase, Brusciano, Caivano, Calvizzano, Camposano, Capri, Carbonara di Nola, Cardito, Casalnuovo di Napoli, Casamarciano, Casamicciola Terme, Casandrino, Casavatore, Casola di Napoli, Casoria, Castellammare di Stabia, Castello di Cisterna, Cercola, Cicciano, Cimitile, Comiziano, Crispano, Ercolano, Forio, Frattamaggiore, Frattaminore, Giugliano in Campania, Gragnano, Grumo Nevano, Ischia, Lacco Ameno, Lettere, Liveri, Marano di Napoli, Mariglianella, Marigliano, Massa di Somma, Massa Lubrense, Melito di Napoli, Meta, Monte di Procida, Mugnao di Napoli, Napoli, Nola, Ottaviano, Palma Campania, Piano di Sorrento, Pimonte, Poggiomarino, Pollena Trocchia, Pomigliano d’Arco, Pompei, Portici, Pozzuoli, Procida, Qualiano, Quarto, Roccarainola, San Gennaro Vesuviano, San Giorgio a Cremano, San Giuseppe Vesuviano, San Paolo Bel Sito, San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, San VItaliano, Sant’Agnello, Sant’Anastasia, Sant’Antimo, Sant’Antonio Abate, Santa Maria la Carità, Saviano, Scisciano, Serrara Fontana, Somma Vesuviana, Sorrento, Striano, Terzigno, Torre Annunziata, Torre del Greco, Trecase, Tufino, Vico Equense, Villaricca, Visciano, Volla. Figure 1 – The Metropolitan city of Naples highlighted in the Italian administrative map CC-BY-SA 3.0 (Gigillo83) Figure 2 – Geographical aerial view oft he area, with the Gulf of Naples and volcano Mount Vesuvius Figure 3 – Administrative view of the Metropolitan city of Naples with its constituent comuni CC-BY-SA 3.0 (Gennaro Jovine) 2. Main general features of the metropolitan geographical-administrative system In the Metropolitan city of Naples, two altimetric ranges can be distinguished (Fig. 4): a plain one (507 km2) and a hilly one (672 km2), the latter including Naples. As pointed out by DARA – Dipartimento per gli Affari Regionali e le Autonomie, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, (2017), it is worth noticing that the hilly zones are almost completely represented by the coastal areas, while the plain can be mostly associated with the inland. Figure 4 – Altimetric zones of the Metropolitan city of Naples (DARA, 2017, based on data from ISTAT): collina = hill | pianura = plain The system at issue shows some exceptional features in the whole Italian country. In fact, its limited extension makes it the smallest of the 14 national Metropolitan cities, while ranking third among the most populated ones, and – as a consequence of the combination of such data – the first for population density. At a regional level, it covers no more than 8.6% of the territory, while hosting more than half of the regional population. Within the metropolitan area, Naples has the highest population (966,144 inhabitants), but ten more municipalities have a population higher than 50,000. The top values of population density are concentrated around Naples (mostly North of it due to the presence of the sea on the opposite side) as well as at the beginning of the Sorrento peninsula in the South of the area at issue (Fig. 5). Figure 5 – Population density in the Metropolitan city of Naples (DARA, 2017, based on data from ISTAT) Figure 6 – Urban settlements in the area at hand (DARA, 2017, based on data from ISTAT); centri abitati = residential areas | nuclei abitati = residential units | località produttive = production areas. Unpainted areas are not urbanised lands (e.g., agricultural lands, marginal areas, etc.) The vision of the vast corridor pictured by the data on population density is complemented by the view of the urban settlements (Fig. 6), showing a continuum from Naples to the beginning of the Sorrento peninsula, passing through the Vesuvian mountainside areas (DARA, 2017). In general, nearly two thirds of the territory are urbanised, with scattered suburbs originating phenomena of commuting although not always well connected to the main city; instead, due to their geography, the islands and the areas of the Sorrento coast are less compact. As we can note in Figures 6 and 7, it is not always easy to tell the physical boundary between the metropolitan urbanised area of Naples and the city of Caserta (out of our system), while some municipalities in the South of the Metropolitan city of Naples appear as rather projected toward the area of Salerno (DARA, 2017). It is interesting to note (DARA, 2017) that “these undifferentiated suburbs” do not overlap with the production settlements, located at their margins and not really balancing the commuting phenomena toward Naples. Figure 7 – Aerial night view of the Metropolitan area of Naples and its surrounding (credits: ESA/NASA) As a whole, the percentage ratio of the residential, commercial, and production compact urban settlement area over total area (Fig. 8) seems to confirm the trend suggested by those on population density and urbanisation, with a strong link between the focal points of Naples and Caserta as well as with a minor yet significant role played by the Southern pre-peninsular area, projected toward the other outer focal point of Salerno. Figure 8 – Compact urban settlement ratio in the Metropolitan area of Naples and surroundings (DARA, 2017); percentage ranges of the residential, commercial, and production compact urban settlement area over total area (average value per municipality) The aforementioned data depict a complex and often problematic system, unique in the country, to which the seismic risk connected to the presence of an active volcano should be added up. The economy of the sole city of Naples is mostly focused on the tertiary sector (e.g., local, metropolitan, and regional administrations and governments; healthcare, education and research; trade and freight transportation, including port activities; and an expanding tourism industry), with poor primary and secondary activities. However, the latter are more important in the rest of the Metropolitan city, which is therefore characterised by a pretty varied economy. The Metropolitan city of Naples is a relatively recent administrative body, introduced by law in 2014 (Italian annual bill n. 56, 7 April 2014) while replacing a previous intermediate body, and presenting the following governmental organs: a metropolitan council composed of 24 seats, chaired by the metropolitan mayor (currently represented by the Mayor of Naples, starting 1 January 2015), and a wider organ called metropolitan conference, composed of the mayors of the 92 municipalities. All the representative roles are second-level positions, with direct elections only held to appoint local administrations in the single municipalities, and locally elected counselors voting for representatives in the organs of the Metropolitan city. The official seat of the Metropolitan city of Naples is Palazzo Matteotti, a building located in Piazza Giacomo Matteotti 1, Naples, Italy. The assigned Italian statistical code is 263, while international ISO 3166-2 code is IT-NA. As the rest of Italy, the Metropolitan city of Naples falls within the UTC+1 time zone. 3. Land use in the geographical-administrative system As shown in Fig. 6, most of the urban residential settlements are concentrated in the coastal area and on the Naples-Caserta axis, with the main production areas laying detached at the Northern edges of the Neapolitan metropolitan urban complex. Most recent data for land consumption for the Metropolitan city of Naples reach the value of 34% of artificial water- repellent land over total land, corresponding to 39,986 hectars (data from Italian national environmental protection and research agency ISPRA – Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale, 2018). In Fig. 9, showing data for the whole region Campania, the predominant role of the Metropolitan city of Naples is clear (its boundaries in the region are made more explicit in Fig. 10). Between 2016 and 2017, our system reported the highest percentage of urban settlement expansion in the region (ibid.). Fig. 9 differs from Fig. 8 in that land use specifically refers to the use patterns (administrative), while land consumption

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