5 th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science, Palma (Balearic Islands, Spain) April 25 th -26 th 2002 1 INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT MODEL TO DESIGN AND EVALUATE RESIDENTIAL PATTERNS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION THAT ARE APPROPRIATE FOR THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF ENVIRONMENTALLY DETERIORATED RURAL AREAS Maurici Ruiz , Jerònia Ramon , Joan Alorda , Antònia Fornés (1) Maria Goula ,Ricard Pié (2) (1) Laboratori de Sistemes d’Informació Geogràfica. Universitat de les Illes Balears. (2) Departament d'Urbanisme i Ordenació del Territori. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. 1. Introduction This paper presents the AIAM model functionality ( Artemis I ntegrated Assessment M odel) one of the main results of the ARTEMIS project “ Design and evaluation of residential patterns in the Mediterranean region that are appropriate for the sustainable development of environmentally deteriorated rural areas ” (Project ENV4-CT97-0656 financed by the ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE programme of 4 th Research Framework program of the European Commission). Artemis project objectives are based on the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), but the origin of the project emerged after 25 years of experience in planning and territorial management activities in different places in the Mediterranean region. It responds to the need to give efficient solutions to the increasing problem of degradation of mediterranean landscapes. The causes of this degradation can found - on the colonisation by randomly selected settlements tourist patterns. These patterns are imported from countries with totally different environmental and socio-cultural conditions. In fact, the patterns of settlements that have been used until now in residential developments are almost wholly determined by accessibility or land ownership typologies and hardly ever taking account of the visual impact produced or its consequences on biodiversity. - or on the progressive abandonment caused by changes in the productive practices, with all well known environmental and social consequences. The above mentioned problems usually occur in territories where the means of local administration for policy making are weak and in their majority, where pressure for land development is enormous. So, there is a serious demand for tools in order to offer alternative, efficient solutions. In that context, the objective is the experimental design of a decision support system tool, the IAM or Integrated Assessment Model, which will be able to evaluate the impact derived by low-density residential developments on rural territories in the Mediterranean region. Specifically IAM helps to : - Analyse and map the environmental fragility of areas for residential development of low-density, excluding the non-building areas for legal and environmental reasons. - Detect and map the environmental fragility of the areas to urban use. - To identify and quantify the impacts derived of the implantation of an specific settlement pattern . - To evaluate the divergence between the environmental preferences of settlement pattern and the land aptitude.