Ecosystem services as support tool of urban planning activities in coastal areas

In coastal areas, increased climatic and anthropogenic pressures contribute to the reduction of ecosystem services related to the biodiversity of natural capital. These dynamics make the coastal areas one of the most complex contexts in which to combine the needs of environmental protection and those that characterize the government of the territory. Given these assumptions, this research activity intends to define the “Blue Community” model. It is aimed at directing planning processes in the definition of the rules of local resources’ use increasing coastal ecosystem services. In order to guide this research, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on the role of ecosystem services in urban planning was conducted. The paper presents the first results of the SLR. In particular, quantitative analysis has made it possible to derive information relating to sources, authors and keywords, highlighting the growing recent interest on the research topic. Instead, the qualitative analysis based on the adoption of a technique of cluster analysis has favoured the study of the interrelations between planning activities of the coastal settlements and the ecosystem services.