Atri's land: how much has been covered, and why the course must be reversed

Atri · Land consumption 2006-2025

More is covered than is given back

• 50.65 hacovered
• 3.31 harestored
• 0 harestored in 2024-25

What was measured

On 27 October 2026 SNPA and ISPRA (the public network of environmental agencies) presented the report Land consumption, urban ecosystems and state of the territory. 2026 edition. The measure starts from a national map at 10 metres, updated every year since 2006 from satellite images and checked by visual interpretation.

By "land consumption" the report means artificial cover: buildings, roads, yards, but also building sites and other non-sealed surfaces (quarries, ground-mounted solar plants). Unpaved greenhouses and bridges are tracked separately and do not count as consumption. Consumption is "net" when what is restored is subtracted.

Two cautions from the report: each year the previous year is also revised, so past figures can change; and the report gives no minimum size in hectares below which a change is not detected, but refers to the SNPA 2024 Guidelines, which we have not read yet.

Atri's figures

For comparison, the average share of Abruzzo municipalities is 5.72% (median 3.93%); the figure for the whole region, weighted by area, is 5.07%. Atri ranks 16th of 305 Abruzzo municipalities for hectares consumed in the last year and 6th of 47 in the province of Teramo. The municipal territory is very large: absolute hectares must not be read as a share.

How it went over time

The first two periods span several years: 16.82 hectares in 2006-2012 (six years) and 7.06 in 2012-2015 (three years, with 1.05 hectares restored). From 2015 on the values are annual, from zero to 5.55 hectares. In 2023-2024 restoration (2.11 hectares) is the highest of the series; in 2024-2025 there was none and the net figure returns to 3.43 hectares.

The data do not say why one year is higher than another: building sites, roads, plants or changes in classification are hypotheses, not results.

What the land was

Municipal data do not distinguish buildings, building sites or plants. Another source, Copernicus, shows where new covered surfaces appeared; we compared those areas with the regional land-use map for 2018-2019, which says how the land was classified in those years. The map does not say what was built.

In the first period the largest share falls on land classified as arable; in the second, inside areas already classified as industrial or commercial. The classification of a point near a boundary can be imprecise. We name no places: aerial photos and official acts would be needed.

Two measures that must not be compared

On this site, the Fields and vegetable gardens page uses Copernicus HRL Imperviousness: in 2024, 258 equivalent hectares (2.81% of the municipality). ISPRA gives 550.74 hectares (6.0%) for 2025. They do not contradict each other: methods and definitions differ (Copernicus measures the density of sealed surface pixel by pixel; ISPRA classifies artificial cover with its own map). For this reason they are neither added nor subtracted.

The headline figure: "-11.27"

For Abruzzo the report gives a UN indicator (SDG 11.3.1) of -11.27, the most negative value in Italy. What it means, and what it does not.

The indicator is the ratio of two percentage changes: that of consumed land and that of population. For Abruzzo the first is about +0.40% in one year (219 hectares out of 54,612). The second is a very small decrease: from the report's table (consumed land per inhabitant and "marginal" consumption of 4,828 m² per resident lost) we derive, by our own calculation from the report's data (not an official figure), a fall of about 450 residents out of about 1.27 million, that is about -0.036%. Dividing +0.40 by -0.036 gives about -11.

The number is so extreme because the denominator is almost zero: if residents had stayed unchanged the ratio could not be computed, with a few more residents it would be positive, with 900 fewer the value would halve. The report itself warns that very high or very low values can come from limited demographic changes. The negative sign is correct (covered land grew while residents fell slightly), but the figure -11.27 does not measure "seriousness" and cannot be compared literally with other regions.

For Atri this indicator is not in the report and we have not calculated it: we would need ISTAT residents for 2024 and 2025.

What the data say, plainly

• Cover grows almost every year. Of ten one-year periods from 2015-16 to 2024-25, nine show a positive net increase. In nineteen years Atri covered 50.65 more hectares (47.34 net).
• Restoration is marginal. 3.31 hectares were recorded, 6.5% of what was covered. In the last year, none.
• The last year is not a better exception. The 3.43 hectares of 2024-2025 are the highest annual value since 2018-19, and restoration offset nothing.
• We are inside the national trend, not outside it. As elsewhere in Italy, more is covered than is given back. Atri is not an extreme case, which is exactly why the direction can be changed by local choices.
• What is covered does not come back by itself. The report separates reversible consumption (building sites) from permanent consumption; in Abruzzo 92% of the 2024-2025 consumption is still reversible: part of it can be returned to soil, if it is decided now.

Municipal data are totals: they do not say where, or for which work. To know that we need the records, which is what we will ask the Municipality for below.

A greener future is possible, and it starts with today's choices

Reversing course does not mean halting the life of a town. It means choosing, at every decision, to start again from what already exists: empty houses and sheds to reuse, paved yards to free up, rooftops to fill with panels before fields. The report points the way with precise numbers: for Atri it estimates between 19.8 and 25.9 hectares of rooftops potentially usable for solar power, an area that alone far exceeds the 3.43 hectares covered in the last year; nationally it identifies 212,327 hectares where nature-restoration projects could be assessed, and the European restoration regulation asks for no further loss of urban green space from 2030. These are estimates and targets, not promises: but they show the tools exist.

We imagine an Atri where, ten years from now, every hectare covered is matched by a hectare given back to the land; where clean energy comes from rooftops and fields stay fields, producing oil, wine and wheat; where schoolyards and squares have more shade and less asphalt, and where rain meets soil that holds it instead of a surface that sends it towards the roads and down the valley. A Municipality that publishes its own figures every year and compares them with the national ones, and sets itself a measurable target. This is our proposal: it accuses no one and takes for granted nothing that the records do not say. But it is a direction, and the European 2050 goal of "net zero land take" is closer than it seems.

To understand where to start we will ask the Municipality, in writing, for the list of building permits and public works begun in 2024-2025 with the area involved, to compare with the 3.43 hectares: not to find fault, but to know how much can be returned to soil and how much can become an example of reuse.

How we worked

Figures taken from the public files of the 2026 report (SNPA, CC BY 4.0 IT licence) and from the full report; the processing (rankings, averages, comparison with the land-use map) is ours and reproducible. The text judges data, not people or administrative choices. If the Municipality replies to the request, the reply will be published in full.