Soil Mapping System and Assessment of Ecologically Sensitive Areas in Cities

Abstract

Ecologically sensitive areas within urban land (U-ESA) play an essential role in sustainability of urban ecological balance and ecological safety. The phenomena such as soil sealing and urban heat islands significantly reduce the ecological functions and ecosystem services of urban soils, thus negatively affecting the living standard and health condition of the urban population. This contribution focuses on the evaluation of sealed area, urban soil quality, and urban green areas infrastructure as well as the occurrence of urban heat islands in the summer months. Microclimatic regulation of heat capacity in built-up urban environments is strongly determined by the soil sealing, i.e., pavement, asphalt, concrete, etc. The methodology for U-ESA assessing is based on a multi-criteria approach in which the following parameters were identified and synthetized: (1) pedo-urban complexes mapping, including the classification of urban soils and their quality; (2) mapping of soil sealing in relation to urban land use and the Extended Nomenclature Urban Atlas 2012; (3) urban heat island (UHI) areas identification (MUKLIMO model); and (4) spatial distribution of urban vegetation. We present a new procedure—a system of urban soil mapping based on the concept of pedo-urban complexes (PUC) that enables soil mapping in large or middle-sized scale. The system includes the use of multiple background materials such as land use map, DTM, digitized ortho-photo-images, and soil survey in the field. The delineation of urban ecologically sensitive areas is addressed in terms of housing comfort and the quality of living standards of the urban population.