Towards Countryside Revival: Reducing Impacts of Urban Expansion on Land Benefits

Urban expansion causes negative environmental impacts that can be measured in terms of human benefits’ losses. Mapping and evaluating urban growth impacts on ecosystem servicesavailability is still a challenging issue, and offers a valuable support to urban planning via enhancing decision makers awareness about the environmental impacts due to planning alternatives. The aim of this study is to highlight challenges and opportunities of mapping and evaluating ecosystem services, thus offering insights on how to ameliorate the incorporation of ecological principles in land use planningtowards minimizing human impacts on natural and seminatural ecosystems. Through a downscaledreview, the ecosystem servicesapproach for reducing urban expansion and connected environmental impacts is analyzed and discussed. In particular, scientific articles and projects are deeply analyzed and discussed using Italy as a case study. Moreover, two innovative approaches for mapping and evaluating the impact of urban expansion on climate regulation and agricultural productivity are presented. According to main outcomes, the present study is expected to contribute to improve the implementation of sustainable development objectives, through giving suggestions to policy-makers and land planners on how to face (and cope with) environmental pressures given by land use changes and urban expansion from local to national scale.