News

New research results from the FP6 project PLUREL show that urban development is by far the most rapidly expanding land use change in Europe. Urban development has a lot of positive effects as a locomotive for economic development, but it can also have serious negative social and environmental consequences, for example through urban sprawl. A better balanced and sustainable
development requires more policy attention on the regional level and the urban – rural interface. The EU can promote an integrated rural-urban development by targeting its policies and funding towards peri-urban areas. Download the summary paper

The objective of PUREFOOD is to train a pool of early-stage researchers in the socio-economic and socio-spatial dynamics of the urban/peri-urban and regional foodscape. Specifically, the projects will focus on three key aspects of the so-called new food geography: sustainable food supply chains, public sector food procurement practices and urban/peri-urban food strategies.
A PUREFOOD website will be launched early in 2011.

The network held its 11th General Assembly meeting in Bruges on 11 October.  South Moravia was welcomed as a new member of PURPLE.  A new Executive Board was elected and will be headed by Mr Michel Gregoire, Vice President for Agriculture and Rural Development for the Rhône Alpes region.

This Metrex international conference took place in May 2009 in Paris.  Several PURPLE members are also active members of the Metrex network, and at this event there was a presentation by PURPLE on the need for recognition of the 'peri-urban' territories which exist across the EU's large metropolitan regions. You can also download the final conference report.

The multi-national Interreg IVB project Changing Climate Changing Lives is looking for peer reviewers to carry out project evaluation. The application deadline is 15 September 2010. More details are available on the project website.

Parallel sessions include:
113 paper- and 47 poster presentations structured by 12 topics reflecting the multidiciplary, multiscalar character of peri-urban land use relationships and sustainability assessment. Scenario, and modelling approaches at different scales are topics of the conference together with governance systems, quality of life, economic assessment, multi-functionality, and finally instruments and tools. 
 
Keynote lectures include:
Representatives of EC funded projects: PLUREL; SUME; URBAN-MATRIX; URBAN ERA-NET
Mr. Ronan Uhel, European Environment Agency, EU
Professor Bob Evans, Northumbria University, Sheffield, UK
Architect Jacob van Rijs, MVRDV, Rotterdam, NL
Professor Binyi Liu, Tongji University, CN
 
The conference is the final scientific event of the PLUREL project: PERI-URBAN LAND USE RELATIONSHIPS – STRATEGIES AND SUSTAINIBILITY ASSESSMENT TOOLS FOR URBAN-RURAL LINKAGES, an Integrated Project under EU’s 6th Framework Programme for Research,
Technology and Development (EC FP6 036921).
 
Online registration will be open until 1 October.
www.plurel.net/conference