EXPERIMENTAL INTEGRATION OF GIS-BASED TOOLS AND ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATION SYSTEMS IN BUILDING COASTAL TOURIST SETTLEMENT IMPACT SCENARIOS

Plantamura Iginia, Lamacchia Maria Raffaella, Milella Silvana

ICAR Department, Polytechnic of Bari, (IT)

A case study along the Apulian peninsula

1. Introduction.
Together with a general phenomenon of urbanization rate increase of coastal zones all over the world, due to the well-documented increasing demographic pressure, along most coasts, particularly Mediterranean coasts, there is a relevant increase in the building pressure caused by tourist activities.

Pic. 1: Location map and coastal dynamics of the study area (elaborated on Corine Land Cover data 1999 and Atlante delle Spiagge Italiane 1985)

This phenomenon is all the more worrying as it threatens coastal areas of significant aesthetic and environmental value and/or coastal areas saved by residential building expansion until now, and this because of a considerable instability and fragility of the eco-system, as in the case of wetlands, sandy dunes, etc.
The experimental integration of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Environmental Performance Evaluation Systems (EPES), for the creation of impact scenarios of coastal tourist buildings presented in this work, is set within a research financed by Italian National Research Centre entitled "Spatial Decision Support Systems for Integrated Tourism Management in Mediterranean Coastal Zone" aimed to the creation of a georeferenced Apulian Pilot Coastal Database for integrated coastal tourism management along Apulian peninsula, in south-eastern Italy.
The experiment, focused on a study area between the coastal towns of Monopoli and Brindisi, aims at the creation of scenarios meant as mode of reasoning on the future.
A qualitative-explicative mode, not belonging neither to the class of prediction, or "prophecies", nor to that of scientific foresight (Vettoretto 2002).
The goal of the work is starting a reflection on the different environmental impacts implied by different typologies of coastal tourism settlements (i.e.: continuous/concentrated vs discontinuous/dispersed; spontaneous/illegal vs planned/legal, etc) through the construction of extreme scenarios, rather than creating trend scenarios and/or predictions of the statistic probability rate of the possible future physical transformation associated with the coastal tourist phenomenon on the basis of quantity information deriving from the state of the places.
Such exercise can put to the test the rightness of some widespread prejudices, for example the hypothesis of greater sustainability of planned tourist settlements (tourist villages, camping areas) in comparison to illegal settlements. (Borri 2002)

2. Integration between Geographical Information System and Environmental Performance Evaluation System.
The international scene offers rich scientific literature regarding GIS and EPES systems supported by research and experiments from the technical as well as the regulation point of view, but the results are often difficult to adapt to the Italian situation.
Therefore these results have to be re-adapted and ways of transferring them to the Italian scene have to be worked out, also by collecting data from field research.
The state of the art knowledge on Environmental Performance Evaluation System and the so far developed studying methods and software have allowed us to choose among different kinds of approaches to analyze the building environmental compatibility.
The choice has finally fallen on those approaches facing this evaluation from a life cycle approach perspective for three different reasons: (i) the life cycle assessment method has recently been standardized by a series of international norms (ISO 14040) and used by the European Community as an evaluation tool for issuing environmental labels and certificates on products and processes; (ii) the kind of output of such method allows us to obtain quantitative evaluations through a transparent and verifiable process, which is different from methods that propose a qualitative output often based on subjective evaluations; (iii) the competence accumulated over the past few years in applying the LCA method by some scholars involved in the research.
By means of such an environmental performance evaluation system (method and software) the environmental performance of three hypothetical tourist buildings can be quantified through two phases: a building characterization phase and an environmental performance evaluation phase.
In the first phase the buildings were characterized according to three parameters:
(i) the building size in volume, the percentage of windows on vertical surfaces, the orientation regarding environmental factors in context;
(ii) the materials and building components used;
(iii) the electricity supplying system.
In the second phase a series of indicators characterizing different aspects of the environmental problem were calculated assigning unitary points (eco-points);
The idea at the basis of the experiment is that of integrating the GIS and EPES systems according to the following scheme in picture 2: the input data required for the building characterization mainly derive from space analyses carried out with gis software on existing geo-database for the survey area.
The EPES system collecting the building characterization data, through the comparison with pre-defined benchmark, carries out environmental performance evaluations and assigns eco-points, which are used in turn for the creation, through gis, of knowledge maps of the current environmental impact level of tourist buildings in the analyzed area.

Pic. 2: Global GIS - EPES integration structure

3.Case Study
The experiment focuses on a study area (subtended by a 45 Km chord) located between the coastal cities of Monopoli and Brindisi characterized by:
(i) an essentially plain and sandy shore,
(ii) the absence of relevant residential settlements;
(iii) and the spreading of tourism settlements, both planned/legal and unplanned/illegal with different degree of density.
By reading Istat data on the receptive capacity per commune until 2001, the analyzed area in the regional landscape appears to be significant as for the study of the tourist phenomenon in its diverse forms - hotels, camping areas, tourist villages, and other kinds of accommodation. (pic. 3a, 3b, 3c).

 

Moreover, as emerges from the Population and Housing 2001 census figures, the elevated percentage of unoccupied houses, (holiday houses or houses occupied by non-resident people) suggests the existence of a conspicuous share of informal tourism not officially calculated, but with quite a remarkable environmental impact. (pic. 3d).
Being aware of the impossibility of exactly defining the limit of the area, since coastal zone delimitation is one of the thorny issue in coastal applications, it was decided to adopt an instrumental delimitation of the area, focusing the experiment on the commune territories of Fasano, Ostuni and Carovigno, and setting the landward boundary of the area coincident with the railway line.
Within this area, analysing some data stored in the Apulian Pilot Coastal Geo-Database (i.e. masterplans, building density, land use, etc.), four zones have been pointed out according to the prevalent receptive buildings typology:
(i) firstly a zone concerning tourist hotel settlements;
(ii) secondly a zone concerning planned tourist buildings (areas destined for tourist expansion by land use master plans, whose building density does not exceed much the predictions);
(iii) thirdly, a zone concerning non-planned tourist buildings (areas destined by land use master plans to agricultural uses, whose current density considerably exceeds the covering rate index of 0.3 maximum allowed in those areas),
(iv) finally the area which is not involved in relevant settlement phenomena, and whose impacts will be considered null (Pic. 4).
The evaluation has been carried out implementing in the system the average data of the tourist buildings located in the first three areas in analysis.
Some of the average data have been evaluated through field analysis and some others extrapolated from the Apulian Pilot Coastal Database by means of GIS Spatial Analysis tools.
For each of these zones the analysis of environmental performance was carried implementing in the system the average data of the tourist buildings located in the first three areas in analysis.
Some of the average data have been evaluated through field analysis and some others extrapolated from the Apulian Pilot Coastal Geo-Database by means of Esri - ArcView 8.0 GIS Spatial Analysis tools.
The environmental performance evaluation system used is Breeam, of the Bre - Building Research Establishment, which collecting the building characterization data, through the comparison with pre-defined benchmark, carries out environmental performance evaluations and assigns eco-points.
Breeam is a voluntary, self-financing scheme for the environmental labelling of buildings, developed by Bre with private sector partners and sponsors.
The basis of the scheme is a certificate awarded to individual buildings stating clearly, and in a way that can be made visible to clients and users alike, the performance of building against a set of defined environmental criteria.
A key essential to Breeam concept is the development of a scheme which works with the grain of the market place.
A Breeam rating gives a commercial advantage to developers and designers that have taken seriously the concepts of sustainable development.
Born to be used during the designing phase, and therefore having a characterization of preventive assessment regarding the realization of the building, this method is based on a long list of requirements.
According to the degree of satisfaction of the expected requirements, this method provides for the assigning of a score, and the sum of the obtained scores represents the synthetic index or reference for the assessment of the building environmental sustainability.
The environmental issues covered are grouped under three main headings: global issues and use of resources, local issues, and indoor issues.(Table 1)

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES COVERD BY BREEAM
GLOBAL ISSUES
- CO2 emissions resulting from energy use;
- acid rain;
- ozone depletion;
- natural resources and recycled materials;
- storage of recycled materials;
LOCAL ISSUES
- legionnaires' disease arising from wet cooling towers;
- local wind effects;
- noise;
- overshadowing of other buildings and land;
- water economy;
- ecological value of the site;
- cyclists' facility;
INDOOR ISSUES
- legionnaires' disease from domestic water systems;
- ventilation, passive smoking and humidity;
- hazardous materials;
- lighting;
- thermal comfort and overheating;
- indoor noise.

Table 1: Environmental issues covered by Breeam.

Through the use of such an environmental performance evaluation system, environmental performances of three hypothetical buildings have to be evaluated.
The three buildings represent the three areas.
Starting from the evaluations obtained by Breeam module, by means of the visualization and communication capability of the geografical information system a knowledge map of the current environmental impact level of tourist buildings in the study area will be constructed, assigning the scores obtained from the hypothetical average buildings to all the buildings of the area.
Moreover, in order to support the political debate, some extreme futurable scenarios will be built, by using Gis software capability.
Since the aim is that of building scenarios as mode of reasoning on the future, extreme futurable scenarios could be built according to the hypothesis of a linear increase of the tourist building pressure, each time substantiated exclusively through one of the three settlement models taken into consideration.
According to Soft System Methodology (Checkland 1988), the different visions produced through this process do not want to be predictions or description of reality, but abstractions built in order to generate and structure a well-informed democratic debate.
The integration structure at the basis of the experiment is the following: the reality is simplified through a conceptual model as it is made by four type zones with homogeneous characters, the input data required by the EPES system derive partly from space analyses carried out with gis software on existing geo-database and partly by field surveys, after a simplification process of real situations in four categories by means of a conceptual model.
The ecopoints assigned by the system to the three measurated situations are used firstly for the creation, through GIS, of knowledge maps of the current environmental impact level of tourist buildings in the analyzed area, and secondly to the creation of extreme scenarios according to simplified hypothesis as base for a democratic debate on the future (Pic. 5).

Pic. 5 Specific experiment GIS - EPES integration structure

4. Conclusions
According to our hypothesis, although several issues still stand unsolved, knowledge maps and extreme futurable scenarios constructions through the integration of Environmental Performance Evaluation Systems and Geographical Information Systems are efficacious Decision Support Systems for structuring a well-informed democratic debate towards a sustainable tourism development.
They allow a direct comparison among alternative project choices, that is to say the possibility of rapidly evaluating the effect on the environment of choosing different materials, systems etc.
Therefore, it is possible to conclude that, in the Mediterranean coastal environment, the integrated use of Geographical Information Systems and Environmental Performance Evaluation Systems on reception buildings here located becomes strategic in order to orient the planning and design choices according to a perspective of environment sustainability.

References