| Popis: |
The present paper discusses the initial results of a broader research project, which is still in progress, aimed at developing a methodology for the analysis of specific land resources, with particular reference to structures and infrastructures and agricultural land-use in rural areas, and to their man-made components in general. The work has been inspired by the increasing emphasis being placed, within land management and economic planning policy-making, on evaluating changes in the main landscape systems. The research project aims to develop a sampling methodology that can be applied to different territorial contexts and over various survey time intervals, consisting of the definition and stratification of an appropriate sampling frame, extraction and investigation of sample study areas and inferential estimation of the parameters under study. This paper describes the main steps in the development and calibration of such an inferential statistical process, based on a stratified landscape sampling design of an 800 km 2 study area located in the province of Bologna, Italy, aimed to assess the changes in the built environment that have occurred between 1975 and 2005. The developed methodology was used to extract and analyse a pilot sample of survey areas on the basis of specific statistical criteria, and tested to evaluate the achievable results. A sampling methodology was developed, whose general validity means it can be applied to a variety of study areas and time intervals. It represents a first methodological contribution for the detailed study of changes in the rural built environment in wide-area studies, within the broader theme of landscape change. |
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