Citation: Smiraglia, D.; Cavalli, A.; Giuliani, C.; Assennato, F. The Increasing Coastal Urbanization in the Mediterranean Environment: The State of the Art in Italy. Land 2023, 12, 1017. https://doi.org/10.3390/ land12051017 Academic Editors: Iwona Cie´ slak and Andrzej Bilozor Received: 31 March 2023 Revised: 2 May 2023 Accepted: 4 May 2023 Published: 5 May 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). land Article The Increasing Coastal Urbanization in the Mediterranean Environment: The State of the Art in Italy Daniela Smiraglia , Alice Cavalli * , Chiara Giuliani and Francesca Assennato Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), Via Vitaliano Brancati 48, I-00144 Rome, Italy; daniela.smiraglia@isprambiente.it (D.S.); chiara.giuliani@isprambiente.it (C.G.); francesca.assennato@isprambiente.it (F.A.) * Correspondence: alice.cavalli26@gmail.com Abstract: This paper describes the state of the art of urbanization in Italian coastal areas in 2021, both at national and regional level. Moreover, we focused on six coastal municipalities, aiming to evaluate land consumption in relation to population dynamics between 2012 and 2021 and assessing per capita consumed land in each municipality. Finally, an analysis of land consumption in specific areas prone to natural risks along the coastline (hydraulic, landslide and seismic, hazard) was provided. We considered areas of medium hydraulic hazard, of high and very high landslide hazard, and of high and very high seismic hazard. The results indicate an intense process of urbanization in the first 1000 m from the coastline at national, regional, and municipal levels, which is also increasing in the presence of stabilization or dwindling inhabitants. Furthermore, urbanization is also affected by geomorphology, leading to the developments of settlements in the most accessible areas, such as coastal plains, without taking into consideration the presence of natural hazards. The study highlights the importance of monitoring land consumption to the understanding of processes related to urbanization in coastal areas, from the perspective of future effective policies and to support sustainable planning. Keywords: land monitoring; soil sealing; land degradation; hydrogeological hazard; land consumption 1. Introduction The loss of natural and productive land from urbanization is a global phenomenon, and represents one of the most important factors in landscape change and land degrada- tion [1–3], associated with the loss of ecosystem services [4–6] and an increasing deserti- fication risk [7,8]. Urbanization has been recently referred to within the concept of land consumption, considered as the change from non-artificial land cover to artificial land cover, with a distinction having to be made between permanent consumption and non-permanent consumption [9]. It is widely diffused in both compact and dispersed patterns [10,11]. Urban densification in the consolidated city as well as sprawling phenomena in fringe and rural areas have become a matter of intense investigation [9,12–16]. Furthermore, the need for an accurate analysis and regulation in the European context is becoming increasingly urgent for the formulation of efficient territorial policies [17,18]. The new EU soil strategy for 2030 [19] is a key deliverable of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 [20]. It aims to pursue Green Deal objectives [21] and to reinforce the importance of soils to tackle the challenges of climate change, desertification, land degra- dation, and biodiversity loss, and to guarantee many ecosystem services. Furthermore, it considers artificialization as one of the main topics to be included in the forthcoming EU Soil Health Law. The vision of the new strategy is to have all EU soil ecosystems healthy and more resilient by 2050, defining medium and long-term goals. With reference to land take and soil sealing, i.e., the expansion of cities and infrastructures at the expense of agriculture and natural environment [1], the strategy includes several actions to set ambitious national, Land 2023, 12, 1017. https://doi.org/10.3390/land12051017 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land