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Simulating Urban and Regional Evolutions: Scenarios of Development in three Study Cases: Algarve Province (Portugal), Dresden-Prague Transport Corridor (Germany-Czech Republic) and Friuli-Venezia Giulia Region (Italy)

Among other causes the analysis of urban areas and their development has particular relevance because of their growing exposure to natural hazards, particularly floods and forest fires. Inappropriate regional and urban planning can exacerbate the negative effects of natural hazards. On the other hand good land management and planning practices, including appropriate land use and development control in natural hazard-prone areas, represent suitable non-structural solutions to minimise exposure and damage. This paper aims to provide a coherent basis for the spatial planning and management of landscapes in Europe. The MOLAND urban and regional growth model (Barredo et al., 2004; White et al., 1999) is used to evaluate spatial planning for sustainable urban development and measures for natural risks reduction. A number of indicators set measuring various aspects of urban land use and population density can also be analysed. In this article we describe the application of the MOLAND model in three study cases presenting each a specific development condition: the Algarve Province in Portugal, the Dresden–Prague transport corridor in Germany and in the Czech Republic and the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Region (FVG) in Italy. In modern Portuguese history, after the revolution in 1974, a “democratisation of tourism” occurred and profoundly changed of land use pattern throughout the country. On the other hand, in the last years, Portugal suffered an increased number of large forest fires. The Algarve Province was especially affected. The objectives of the work in Algarve are to monitor sustainable development trends, assess the impact of tourism and evaluate the problems cased by forest fires. The dynamic of land use scenarios are examined as a way to turn intuitive knowledge of a problematic situation into clear research questions that may be explored by analysing and forecasting. The future scenarios produced by the model are tailored to particular requirements such as the assessment of tourism and measures to improve regional needs. The Dresden-Prague corridor is a very interesting European region because of its historical, present and future development. Many historical and political events and geographical circumstances have moulded the landscape. Recently, during the 2002 flood events have affected the territory destroying villages and inundating cities of Dresden and Prague, in both of which large parts of the old town were under water. How could the land be used in such a way to reduce the floods damages?