## 4 Discussion
Figure 11 and Table 11 show the spatial articulation of new urban expansions by means of Urban Atlas map. The last urban growth (1960-2009) entails almost 3500 ha and almost 50% of this consists of \"discontinuous urban fabric\" with medium and dense densities. This percentage rises to 85% when also taking into account the low-density \"urban discontinuous\" typology, industrial and commercial areas, extraction sites and roads. The only land composition analysis avoiding the issues of environmental and social quality concerning these transformations (issues that will be the subject of future work) shows an urbanization process which has led to the saturation of the territory and the waterproofing of previous agricultural soils. There is the almost total absence of soils destined for public services, such as urban green areas and areas for sport and recreation, although this was foreseen by national urban planning law (of 1942) and urbanistic standards national  
legislation (1968). It should be further highlighted that within the new urban expansion, about 15 ha (0.5%) is classified as areas without use or abandoned. Figure 11: Urban Atlas (2018) land uses in Naples province (figure above) and urban expansion between 1960–2009. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c l c c} \hline \hline
**Code** & **Item 2018** & **Area (ha)** & **\%** \\ \hline
**11210** & Discontinuous dense urban fabric (S.L.: 50–80\%) & 1082.0 & 31.7\% \\
**11220** & Discontinuous medium density urban fabric (S.L.: 30–50\%) & 561.2 & 16.5\% \\
**12100** & Industrial, commercial, public, military and private units & 360.5 & 10.6\% \\
**11230** & Discontinuous low density urban fabric (S.L.: 10–30\%) & 340.9 & 10.0\% \\
**11100** & Continuous urban fabric (S.L.: \(>\)80\%) & 298.3 & 8.8\% \\
**12220** & Other roads and associated land & 254.6 & 7.5\% \\
**13100** & Mineral extraction and dump sites & 85.2 & 2.5\% \\
**23000** & Pastures & 78.8 & 2.3\% \\
**21000** & Arable land (annual crops) & 60.5 & 1.8\% \\
**32000** & Herbaceous vegetation associations (natural grassland, moors) & 45.3 & 1.3\% \\
**14100** & Green urban areas & 42.6 & 1.3\% \\
**14200** & Sports and leisure facilities & 40.5 & 1.2\% \\
**12230** & Railways and associated land & 35.5 & 1.0\% \\
**12210** & Fast transit roads and associated land & 34.7 & 1.0\% \\
**31000** & Forests & 31.9 & 0.9\% \\
**11240** & Discontinuous very low density urban fabric (S.L.: \(<\) 10\%) & 25.0 & 0.7\% \\
**13400** & Land without current use & 15.1 & 0.4\% \\
**50000** & Water & 6.7 & 0.2\% \\
**22000** & Permanent crops (vineyards, fruit trees, olive groves) & 5.4 & 0.2\% \\
**11300** & Isolated structures & 2.8 & 0.1\% \\
**13300** & Construction sites & 1.4 & 0.0\% \\ \hline \hline  & TOTAL & 3408.8 & 100.0\% \\ \hline \hline  & & \\ \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 11: Urban Atlas (2018) land uses in urban expansion areas between 1960–2009. This study shows that, historically, urban expansion in the Vesuvius area has mainly occurred at the expense of agricultural areas. The awareness of this must focus the attention of planners and political decision-makers with respect to current suburbs: 95% of the urban buffer areas consist of agricultural land. To avoid new land use changes characterized by strong waterproofing and low social and environmental quality standards, it will be appropriate to adopt new measures and strategies for the protection of agricultural heritage. Specific investigations undertaken at a greater level of detail will have to be carried out in future work to investigate the possible connections between the composition and configuration of the landscape and the socio-economic characteristics of areas of urban expansion. The present work, which developed a methodology that analyses historical LUCC in the Vesuvius area in terms of landscape metrics, may support local administrators in their attempts to implement possible strategies to mitigate the effects of the rapid urban development.