The ENVIBASE-Project

Documentation / Online Handbook

Land use and Biotopes

Description of the Problem

Since its selection as the capital of the Hellenic State, Athens has suffered from a lack of data on land uses, which has impeded reliable city management. The authorities involved require a large amount of data to perform their tasks. The required land use data have many dimensions and density in their urban context. The diagnosis of urban problems, phenomena of growth and decline, abandoned land, and sensitive zones require a detailed knowledge of land use. On the urban scale, in Athens the research initiatives for land use are aimed at the optimisation of the relevant data management. In fact, no decision making and urban policy process can be consistent, reliable, integrated, equitable and development-oriented without a documented infrastructure with reliable, comprehensive, accurate, and continuously up-to-date information on land use and other components of the urban organism.

The above mentioned research identified the most representative "cell" the structural element of the physical and socio-economic environment. This "cell" should be related with qualitative and quantitative information that is unique to this entity. Moreover, it should specify its accurate relationship with the whole environment. The identity of each structural element is very important for any structural change process, as well as for monitoring development and environmental processes.

At the level of the municipality, the land pattern is characterised by an extremely small number of urban parcels. The Land Registry books and maps are traditionally the main basis for collecting, storing, and processing information related to land parcels. The need for comprehensive information on land use (and other environmental data) introduced the effort to integrate digital cadastral maps and digital thematic maps, aerial photography and video analysis data. The unification and multidimensional integration of all this information, for the municipality of Athens, requires mainly:

• higher aerial photography resolution and, in the near future, satellite scanner resolution;
• an optimised combination of the cadastral information with the thematic information;
• a standardised pattern of collecting, representing, and updating the land use data.

Since 1994, the Municipality of Athens has used a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in land use analysis and urban planning.

With regard to this hybrid GIS, an effort was made for the ongoing measurement and monitoring of data, relations and interactions of the urban environment. Land use effectiveness and environmental quality are the main prerequisites in achieving the sustainable development of Athens.

Environmental crises have already hit this city. Athens is at the top of the list of polluted European capitals. Social problems accumulate and become more visible with the wave of immigrants from the non EU-countries. Environmental and social tensions are reflected in land uses. The bipolarity between central and residential areas is a field of conflict: centres of activity (supermarkets, music-halls, night clubs) often penetrate into residential areas; motor vehicle garages and warehouses often co-exist with housing areas; noisy activities produce linear centres which are contributing significantly to the traffic congestion of the main roads of the city. This repulsive aspect of the city makes some neighbourhoods unliveable and the inhabitants are leaving them.

Athens is mainly a concrete city and therefore has few biotopes and green areas. The very few green areas are included in the GIS system described below. The urban landscape is characterised by several marked elevations which interrupt, in a unified north-north-east direction, an otherwise flat plain that extends out to the sea. These include the Lycabetus (227 m), the Acropolis (156 m), the Philopappou (147 m), and the Pnyx (110 m) hills. The natural vegetation on the hills of Athens is chiefly determined by the temperature, soil, and water conditions in Attica. Xeromorphic plants grow well here. Park facilities for leisure time and recreation are nevertheless only sporadically available. The largest are Areos Park (20.9 ha, 85 m) with ornamental trees and shrubs and the National Garden (15.8 ha, 90 m) with a high proportion of cultivated non-indigenous plant species, tree, and plant vegetation. Smaller parks are Alsos Syngrou (12 ha, 130 m), a park space in a densely built-up area, the end of a green strip extending from Hymittos down to the city with natural vegetation (mainly pine wood), and Alsos Pagrati (2.8 ha), a sport and recreation park near the city centre with sparse pine grove, dense old timber populations, and a large lawn. Water above ground exists only in very limited amounts in Attica. The two main rivers, Kifissos and Ilissos, have been covered. Only the former is still recognisable today, and it seldom contains water during the summer months. Another small river, Iridanos, has almost entirely vanished today, a small part of which crosses the Cemetery of Ancient Athens in Keramikos. It is worth mentioning that Kifissos flows from Pentelikon mountain, Parnitha, and the north part of Egaleon. Ilissos flows from Hymittos, and Iridanos from Lycabetous.

To make Athens healthier, one should focus on these inadequate urban land uses and the exhaustive diagnosis of their problematic functions. To fulfil this task, many different elements, qualitative and quantitative, each of them with its proper degree of accuracy, should be taken into account. The implementation stage of planning requires that all functions involved should be done at the municipal level. Therefore, it was decided that the municipality lead the initiatives for the collection, conversion, stock investigation, analysis, measurement, correlation, pulling together, and development of patterns and models. The technical difficulties of this analysis constitute a major problem, due to the excessive fragmentation of the land and the considerable amount of data to be integrated, both qualitative and quantitative, as well as the continuous monitoring of them. As a result, this kind of data is or will become soon a strong instrument for better diagnosis of urban problems, ensuring sustainable urban development.

Data Sources

Land use data for Athens can be provided by several administrations. The Ministry of Environment, Planning and Public Works is a principal source of data. The Organisation for Planning and Environmental Protection of Athens, founded in 1985, is a state institution, which took over from the various ministries all planning tasks related to greater Athens, including the land use data and management.

In the last ten years, the first level local authority, the municipality, became the most important factor for land use analysis in the municipal area. The analysis and assessment of the land uses are managed in the successive urban rehabilitation programmes of the municipality.

Among these projects, which contributed significantly to land use analysis in Athens, it is possible to mention the following: The Old City of Athens (Plaka) Project, started in 1980 by the Ministry of the Environment, became an efficient means for the upgrading of this sensible historical centre. In 1989, the municipality of Athens entrusted a survey for the urban renewal project of the Central Business District of Athens, the so-called "Commercial Triangle," to the Urban Planning Research Centre of the National Technical University of Athens. After detailed land use analysis, these projects introduced by decrees the relevant regulations on land use and other parameters of urban development.

In 1993, the projects for the Rehabilitation of the Historic Residential Districts (the projects for Metaxourgio, Psyri, and Exarhia) were completed. Although they take into account the new possibilities on land use regulation, it was not possible to adopt a standardised approach for the analysis of the land use as well as of many other elements of these districts.

A significant step in the overall evolution of urban planning in Athens was taken by the Pilot Neighbourhood project, started in 1990. It focused on a typical Athenian neighbourhood (Koliatsou - Patisia) and aimed at preparing the planning for the revitalisation of the city neighbourhoods. With regard to land use analysis, there are two important innovations: the organisation of the information in a database (DB III) and the maps of the project, including the land use analysis, which were transformed on a digital form (DXF files). Borrowing from this experience, the Town Planning Department of the municipality prepared a new series of projects for the revitalisation of city neighbourhoods (Omonia-Vathi, Neapolis, Kypseli, Victoria, Ilissia, Kolonaki), which were achieved in 1994, providing an accurate and reliable (non-computerised) database on land uses. The next series of revitalisation projects (including the areas of Kolonos, Agios Pavlos, Platia Attikis, Platia Amerikis, Pangrati, and Petralona) was fully prepared and presented on a digital form. These projects, completed in 1996, used GIS methods for their data analysis and interpretation.

Methods

By the end of the seventies in Greece, two important planning laws (947/1979 and 1337/1983) introduced, among other issues, two levels of urban planning; at the higher level, is the General Urban Plan (GUP), which covers issues related to the larger planning scale, and at the lower level is the Local Plans for Expansion and Renewal (LPER), which define the planning procedure, the details of urban planning, and urban design, introducing a standardised land use mapping. Accordingly, the Ministry of Planning, Housing, and Environment started an "operation for urban restructuring" ("EPA"), the aim of which was the planning of 422 towns and settlements all over Greece. Moreover, this ministry put into effect the 1515/1985 law by which the Structure Plan for Greater Athens was approved, forming an outline regional plan that laid down the spatial goals and the relevant political measures for the principal sectors (expansion and renewal areas, division into centres, industrial estates, green spaces and coastal areas, traffic, etc.). This plan included a detailed land use pattern with reference to the GUP of the involved municipalities. In 1992, this plan was revised by the law 2052/92 in order to adapt its options to the European perspectives of the country.

This institutional initiative was followed by supplementary decrees (81/1980 and 23/2/1987) which specified and classified the urban land uses according to their compatibility with residential areas and the disturbance caused to existing preferable uses. These factors were also taken into account in the GUP and LPER

With regard to these decrees, the major categories of urban land uses are the following:

1. purely residential areas
2. 2. mixed residential areas
3. urban centre, central town activities, local activity centre, neighbourhood centre
4. non-disruptive manufacturing activity, light industry, industrial parks
5. disruptive manufacturing activity, industry and light industry
6. wholesale market
7. tourism, entertainment
8. open spaces, urban green areas
9. social services

These institutional arrangements made possible and incited the land use arrangement at the municipal level. The Municipality of Athens was the first local authority of Greece to develop a pilot initiative on land use analysis and management. Athens had already a significant experience on land use analysis, given that important projects, including this component, were produced continuously since 1972. Nowadays, the technical standards for digital maps are very detailed and include a series of layers referring to specific fields of analysis such as:

The Database of each one of these projects has a standardised and comprehensive structure such as:

This standardisation can also be identified at the plans (maps):

The census of the land uses is performed manually, on the basis of the elementary unit, which is the building and its corresponding plot. Moreover, it is specified on the underground level, on the ground level, and on the floors level.

Results

A modern, integrated, and reliable approach for land use analysis is a fundamental element for the efficient urban management of the Hellenic capital. The interaction between the data infrastructure for urban planning and the implementation of the planning process highlights the need for such an approach. Moreover, a public, open, objective information database framework is necessary for the substantial participation of the citizen at any level of urban management.

The first series of projects which provided data on land uses in Athens was characterised by non-standardised, non-compatible, and non-computerised data. The standardisation and organisation of the data on land uses was started in 1990 by the Pilot Neighbourhood Project and the Projects of the central neighbourhoods (Omonia-Vathi, Neapolis, Kypseli, Victoria, Ilissia, Kolonaki). Drawing on this experience, the Town Planning Department of the municipality prepared a new series of projects for the revitalisation of city neighbourhoods, which was completed in 1994. These projects provided, to some extent, a standardised method for land use analysis based on non-digital approaches but compatible with them. The next series of revitalisation projects (including the areas of Kolonos, Agios Pavlos, Platia Attikis, Platia Amerikis, Pangrati, and Petralona) was fully prepared and presented on a digital form. These projects, realised in 1996, used GIS methods (Arc-info) for their data analysis and interpretation. Following this experience, it became possible to provide a detailed standardised methodology for land use analysis in the next series of projects, issued in 1997 (Votanikos, Gyzi, Ano Kypseli, Nirvana, Tris Gefyres, Neos Cosmos, and Koukaki).

In conclusion, it is possible to identify a standardised method for database registrations. This method, issued by successive improvements of the first land use data, can become at any level a powerful instrument for urban management and an efficient means of environmental management. This evolution can provide several compatible data, integrated into a comprehensive GIS which will serve as an efficient factor of urban management in the Hellenic capital.

Uses

The use of the above system is mainly for planning.

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