Traditional agricultural landscapes in Italy

Traditional agricultural landscapes in Italy: defining a multidisciplinary and multiscale model for planning and management (2013-2016)

Traditional agricultural landscapes result from the long-term interaction between man and the environment and are generally associated with low impact agricultural practices, significant habitat diversity, and occurrence of semi-natural vegetation.

The role of the Department team in this project dealt with the characterization and mapping of agricultural areas at national level that are likely to host traditional agricultural landscapes, based on the assumptions of low-intensity farming and persistence, and that, at the same time, are meaningfully delimited and representative of ecoregional and vegetation diversity.

Methodological approach

• • Composition in agricultural types that are best proxies for low-impact and persistent agriculture and/or generally important for biodiversity (from 2012 CORINE Land Cover.

  • Reasonable proximity of agricultural patches

  • Representativeness of different natural settings (sources: Maps of ecoregions of Italy, Map of Vegetation Series of Italy).

  • Meaningful delimitation based on environmental homogeneity. Boundaries should be enclosed as much as possible within a single type of potential natural vegetation

  • Persistence. Agricultural areas that are eligible for composition must be clearly identifiable in maps of different dates (sources: Map of land use of Italy CNR-TCI, 1956-68; CORINE Land Cover 2012).