Green Infrastructure and Ecosystem Services to Guide the Revision Process of Land-Use Plan. A Methodological Framework

Nowadays, several experiences in the spatial planning show that a performance-based planning approach that introduces the ecosystem services provided via green infrastructure can positively influence the social dynamics and contribute to improve the quality of life in rural and urban environments. Despite the need to introduce ES and GI concepts and paradigms into the spatial planning process, in the Italian planning system the green component in cities is still planned at the municipal level by the Land Use Plan, which is based on prescriptive model of zoning. The paper analyses a research project developed for two case studies on different urban contexts in the Marche region (Central Italy) through a comparative method based on a multiscale planning approach to evaluate ecosystem services related to land uses and land use suitability. In both cases, this approach has positively influenced the revision process of the current Land Use Plan in supporting the design of green infrastructure to improve the environmental performance of cities.