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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2016

Mapping the fragility hotspots of a Mediterranean terraced system

Résumé

The current management of Mediterranean terraced landscapes rises questions that go beyond the agricultural dynamics. Numerous studies addressed so far the terraced landscape management, encompassing various geographic locations and several disciplinary or integrative approaches. Yet, the observable current dynamics suggest instead that the major challenge for terraced landscape conservation is to capitalize past knowledge to provide a reliable support for the new land managers, such as newcomers and tourists who bought (second) houses and lands for settlement purposes. Indeed, terraced landscapes have sometimes shifted toward neo-rurality and periurbanity, and farming is pursued just as part-time or hobby activity. Whereas the abandonment of the entire farming system implies the basic problem to conserve both soil and landscape cultural features, new management styles may imply a partial farming abandonment (i.e., just of the terrace management). Altogether, this claims for new landscape strategies to preserve the character of these traditional systems. Accordingly, we carried out a landscape agronomy assessment to support the management of a terraced system. This article aims to discuss a spatially explicit method combining natural and anthropic landscape features related the expected terrace degradation dynamics (i.e., fragility). Of note, we targeted the formalization of local expert knowledge as fundamental complement to existing and available maps. The method is a GIS based multi-criteria analysis (MCA) designed and implemented on the Monte Pisano (62 km², Tuscany, ITA) as illustrative of Mediterranean terraced landscapes. Schematically a MCA method is composed by three cognitive processes: the characterization of the decision-making situation, the modeling of the preferences, and the formulation of final recommendations. In our case-study these were articulated in a 6-steps method drawn upon the structure proposed by Malczewski (1999, GIS and multicriteria decision analysis. Wiley). First there was the definition of decision problem (step 1), then divided into operational objectives and associated to a set of criteria (step 2). The GIS environment added the need to identify the relevant spatial scale (step 3). These bases supported the selection and the elaboration of attributes (step 4), then aggregated according to the preferences expressed by the decision maker(s) (step 5). In this way, the terraced landscape was delimited into a set of ranked spatial alternatives responding to the initial decision problem. Finally, the assessment of the result reliability with field validation allowed formulating the final recommendations (step 6). The main results were the maps of local terraced landscape structural and overall fragility, classed into four levels ranging from weak to strong, i.e. where intensive management is required to mitigate/avoid expected degradation phenomena. A further output was the quantification of dry-stone walls: 1,930,000 linear meters on 1,813 ha of total agricultural surface, with an average density of 1,050 m/ha. The field validation showed that the method proved reliable at identifying the extreme classes of fragility. Altogether, the various study outputs (maps, handbook, dissemination activities) are supporting local policy makers at prioritizing the use of monetary resources (e.g., public investments or targeted subsidies) ordinarily insufficient to cope with the huge need for the whole terraced system.
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Dates et versions

hal-03581556 , version 1 (20-02-2022)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-03581556 , version 1

Citer

Davide Rizzo, Sabine Gennai-Schott, Tiziana Sabbatini, Enrico Bonari. Mapping the fragility hotspots of a Mediterranean terraced system: A landscape agronomy approach based on GIS multi-criteria analysis. Terraced Landscapes: choosing the future, International Terraced Landscapes Alliance, Oct 2016, Chiavari, Italy. ⟨hal-03581556⟩
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