Differentiating peri-urban areas: A transdisciplinary approach towards a typology

- A typology of peri-urban areas based on a transdisciplinary approach was sought.
- Indicators across six different disciplinary dimensions were used.
- Two clusters of parishes were classified as urban and five as peri-urban.
- The transdisciplinary approach provided new insight into these complex regions.

Peri-urban areas have no clear boundaries, both in geographic and conceptual terms. This paper presents a transdisciplinary approach for the identification of typologies of peri-urban areas and applies it to the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA), Portugal. It is based on the assumptions that more than one type of peri-urban region around an urban core can exist, and that a transdisciplinary approach, linking the physical, economic, social and personal aspects, is needed to capture the intrinsic variability and the complexity of the peri-urban character. The approach is based on four sequential steps: (i) identifying the important peri-urban dimensions to be considered, based on expert-knowledge and stakeholder perspectives; (ii) defining a set of indicators for each dimension; (iii) summarizing redundant information for each dimension; and (iv) applying cluster analysis to identify typologies of peri-urban. This approach was applied to the 211 parishes comprised in the LMA. Seven types of parishes were identified, of which two can be considered urban and five peri-urban, although with quite distinct features. This approach has the potential to be applied to other metropolitan regions, and the resulting peri-urban (and urban) typologies can contribute to a better understanding of the peri-urban character, and to a more targeted implementation of planning and management strategies taking into consideration the diversity and specificities of each peri-urban type.