The use of GIS as a tool of analysis and representation of land use

Soil Framework Directive COM(2006) 232 stated that soil, fairly recognizable as an ecosystem structure, can be considered essentially as a non ­renewable resource. In this perspective, the aim of the present research is to quantify land take and soil sealing and to suggest actions for its mitigation in land­use policies. Land take and soil sealing quantifies the land­use change from natural land uses to artificial ones for urban and infrastructure development. In order to calculate the extension of areas concerned by the land take and soil sealing, this paper proposes a methodological approach for the construction of the density index of impervious areas through specific spatial analysis, namely the focal statistics, performed in a GIS environment. The experimentation is conducted in the MITO (Multimedia Information of Territorial Objects) Laboratory of the Technical University of Bari (Italy) in order to launch a regional observatory for land­use change.