Policy instruments as a trigger for urban sprawl deceleration: monitoring the stability and transformations of green areas

The socialist era postponed suburbanisation in Central and Eastern European countries. After 1990, the process became extremely intensive and transformed the compact form of cities into more decentralised and dispersed urban structures. Therefore, the study aims to identify the main trends in land-cover transformation caused by urban sprawl in peri-urban areas of three Central and Eastern European cities (NUTS 3 level: the Pest County, Bratislava Region, and Krakowski subregion). In addition, we identified various policy tools for green infrastructure protection. We further investigated the extent to which the presence of legal means of nature conservation affects the stability of natural and seminatural areas. The research used an original questionnaire and spatio-temporal analysis. It has been confirmed that after decades of socialism, a highly intensive urban sprawl process started in the analysed regions. It generally slowed down after 2000 except for the Krakowski subregion. The majority of new artificial areas replaced agricultural land. Despite the dynamic urban sprawl, almost one-third of the analysed Central and Eastern European peri-urban areas were stable natural and seminatural areas. The traditional nature conservation tools proved to be effective in preserving natural and seminatural areas, but the protection of landscapes exposed to urban sprawl needs specific tools. The effectiveness of urban sprawl control is hindered by the fact that spatial planning competences are dispersed. This research may influence monitoring urban sprawl and offer an innovative method because it combines spatial analysis (quantitative approach) with the impact of policy tools (qualitative approach).