Sustainable development at local level and “anthropic resilience”. Sustainability indicators from SPIn-Eco project

The socio economic context of the Province of Siena (central Italy) is peculiar because it is characterised by the same development trend of western countries but, at the same time, it is not completely affected by the negative aspects of this. The SPIn-Eco project is a triennial research program with the purpose of assessing the environmental conditions of the Province of Siena (Tuscany, central Italy) and its 36 municipalities. It is a deep analysis of the state of the territorial system by a complete set of instruments and indicators. This paper shows the aggregated results of the analysis for the northern area of the Province of Siena, called Val d'Elsa, which is composed by 6 municipalities. The area is characterised by variegated geomorphology, environmental aspects and urbanization. At the same time, each municipality is traditionally inclined to the development of some activities: agriculture, industry, craft, tourism respectively. The paper presents an environmental assessment of the use of resources at a local level by using some methodologies and sustainability indicators: emergy evaluation (introduced by Howard Odum), greenhouse gas inventory (according to the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories) and ecological footprint analysis (introduced by M. Wackernagel and W. Rees). The discussion section deals with the environmental, social and economic aspects of these under a sustainable perspective. We believe that the distribution of different peculiarities on the territory could be emphasized as a sort of "anthropic (or urban) resilience" of the system by a correct territorial planning activity towards sustainability.