Territory Conceived as a System. Criteria for Ecological and Parametric Methods of Analysis

Abstract

The authors have it that the fundamental matrix of Territory is that base ground that is the outcome of the
interaction of space and time when determined by the physical fact, its biological component, its functional
characteristics and those changes that human activity has brought with it and imposed upon the landscape.
The landscape itself is here understood historically as the upshot of that metabolic process between any
society and the environment that maintains it. They then suggest that one of the ways that Territorial
changes are best to be understood would be through an analysis of the energy, material and information
fl ows brought on by the metabolic interchange between any economy and its setting, identifying here the
major ecological impacts of any such process. Though a part of Territory be given over to urban uses, it is
argued that the greater part of it is still to be understood as being classifi able as open free or available space.
A reconciling of the interests of either of the uses is held to be of outstanding importance in such Territory
as bears the weight of human occupation. The foregoing has led the authors to consider the territorial matrix
as a functional model, an emerging model that offers a system and ecological criteria along with parametrical
methodology when it comes to assesing enviromental strategies for town and country planning and
infrastructures.