Urban Settlement Sensibility Assessment Morphological-based analysis in Italian case studies

The proposed research describes an index which measures the land sensibility by urbanisation. This index has been developed from a retrospective analysis of the development of settlements where geographical morphology varies significantly. The preliminary study aims at gauging how morphological factors (slope altitude, gradient and aspect) have influenced current urbanisation in the studyareas: the Italian regions of Umbria, Marche, Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise. Calculating this index has identified the main morphological factors linked to land uptake and highlights areas that are more vulnerable to urbanisation, assuming urbanisation continues according to the model adopted over the past sixty years. It's clear that urban settlement sensibility depends from a lot of parameters as morphology, infrastructure and economic and social aspect, but, in a long term perspective, the morphometric characteristics influence all other in determining the spatial organization of settlement.