From Cost Benefit Analysis to Spatial Indicators: The Use of CO2 Segregation and Carbon Footprint for the Evaluation of Sustainable Land Use Transitions

The paper shows the first result of a research project, aiming at considering new useful environmental indicators that will be useful to describe, such as a unique parameter, the environmental impact of spatial artificialization of land. The well known concept of “soil take” can support the evolution towards new concepts, related to global environmental phenomena, such as the increase of “Global Warming” and of “Carbon Dioxide”. Land transition from an existing natural category of soil coverage to a new artificial one is one of the main negative contribution to the increase of the temperature in the earth's atmosphere. Some recent studies developed by scholars in environmental economics, put on evidence the function of “cost of carbon dioxide segregation” as a relevant indicator of Heart’s Global Warming. The paper highlights a double function of such kind of measures: “synthetic environmental indicators” on one hand represent the measure of a continuous check of global change in the atmosphere, and on the other hand consider the economic value of carbon segregation as an “easy” alternative to cost benefit assessment, able to describe in a unique dimension the trend of global phenomena.