Overview

Rethinking Rural: Data-Driven Approaches for Sustainable Development offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary exploration of sustainable rural development through a quantitative lens. Drawing on official statistics, spatial analysis, and refined indicators, this edited volume brings together leading scholars from ecology, economics, and planning to rethink the environmental-economic nexus shaping rural territories. With a focus on Europe and the Mediterranean, but applicable globally, the book emphasizes continuous, spatially explicit monitoring of socioecological and socioeconomic complexities to inform effective, place-specific policies that enhance sustainability and resilience. Structured in three parts, the book first presents integrated perspectives on rural system evolution, including climate change impacts, land use, and socioeconomic drivers across diverse contexts such as Mediterranean landscapes and Colombia’s deforestation. The second part details traditional and advanced tools for monitoring rural environments, from territorial indicators to wildfire and habitat assessment. The final section addresses planning and policy challenges, evaluating natural disaster management, resilience strategies, environmental degradation costs, and socio-demographic influences on tourism insurance.

Full Product Details

Author:   Luca Salvati (Adjunct Professor and Staff Researcher, Sapienza University of Rome; CREA, Rome, Italy)
Publisher:   Elsevier - Health Sciences Division
Imprint:   Elsevier - Health Sciences Division
ISBN:  

9780443456374

ISBN 10:   0443456372
Pages:   300
Publication Date:   01 April 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

1. Local development and sustainability of rural systems: an integrated, multidisciplinary perspective Part 1. Assessing the evolution of rural systems: theory and practice 2. Monitoring the Impact of Climate Change on Social and Economic Activities over time and space 3. Life under climate change: unravelling socioeconomic and bio-geophysical drivers of change in evolving Mediterranean landscapes 4. Coca cultivation and deforestation in Colombia: a paradigmatic example of unsustainable (local) development 5. Land consumption and food safety 6. The role of wildfires in rural development 7. Zoonosis and rural farming spaces evolving toward peri-urban Part 2. Traditional and advanced tools for monitoring rural systems 8. Territorial indicators: toward an integrated analysis 9. Monitoring Forest Cover from a mix of Data Sources: A contribution to Landscape Analysis 10. Monitoring wildfires from a socioeconomic perspective: a spatially augmented Zipf’s law tells you more 11. Monitoring natural habitats Part 3. Evaluating, understanding and planning socio-economic complexity in rural districts 12. Planning and policy of sustainable land management 13. Envisaging and planning Natural Disasters during the era of crisis in Greece 14. Resilience, indicators and policy evaluation: Monitoring EU-PNRR strategy in Italy 15. Data matters: Estimating monetary costs of a process of Environmental Degradation 16. Tourism Insurance and Socio-demographic Contexts in Iran: A Delphi Panel

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Author Information

Luca Salvati is an adjunct professor and staff researcher at Sapienza University of Rome. Since 2001 he has been staff researcher at the National Council for Research in Agriculture and the Analysis of Agricultural Economics (CREA). He is an expert in official statistics, spatial statistics, Geographic Information Systems and Remote sensing applied to socioeconomic and environmental issues. He has conducted studies on topics of economic statistics, urban economics, regional demography, and sustainable development, using exploratory multivariate statistics and geographic information systems for decision support. He has held courses in Economic Statistics (University of Rome Tor Vergata), Basic Mathematics (University of Rome La Sapienza), Multivariate Statistics (University of Roma Tre), Regional Economics (University of Camerino, University of Eastern Piedmont), Strategic Evaluation of environmental impact (University of Roma Tre). He has supervised master's and doctoral theses and has published more than 30 printed books and over 600 scientific publications in English.

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