Identifying agricultural areas with potential for city connections: A regional-scale methodology for urban planning

Abstract The main objective of this study was to characterize the spatial structure of periurban agriculture for the purpose of operational urban development, avoiding the use of cumbersome and costly surveys when the public action sphere is extended to a region or a country. On the basis of Partial Least Squares-Path Modeling (PLS-PM), the approach developed here uses data freely available in France and makes it possible to analyze complex relationships between the socio-economic structure of farms, demography, landscape structure, and landscape management and function. The results are used to identify spatial units of periurban farmland (USAP). Aggregated at the municipal level, they reveal municipalities under the influence of an urban pole whose agricultural areas have a greater possibility of developing short marketing chains towards the city and that could consequently justify public support for local supply options.