Considerations on the Changes in the Economic Land Use in Italy and the Corresponding Soil Consumption

The topic of the change in the economic land use and the corresponding soil consumption are quite complex, also because of the multi–sector economic activities that are set up and that can enter into competition with each other, an activity that predominantly tend to evolve from agricultural and non–agricultural factors.Furthermore, it is in particular in countries with advanced economic development, as the case Italy, here analyzed, and especially those characterized by a ratio between land and population which tends to be set at a medium to high values of demographic pressure and, in some cases, with progressive intensification prospects of the phenomenon.The aim of this paper is to examine the phenomenon from different angles, giving rise to different models of analysis in the last fifty years (1961–2010) on how has undergone extensive economic processes of change in the land use in the territory of our country.Finally, we propose to understand the causes and to evaluate the short–term and long–term effects with reference to agriculture, to rural world and the entire socio-economic system.