Abandonment of traditional terraced landscape: A change detection approach (a case study in Costa Viola, Calabria, Italy)

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a change‐detection study of the historical agricultural terraced landscape in “Costa Viola” (Calabria, South Italy). During the last century, because of the loss of economic competitiveness, it has undergone progressive abandonment, followed by landscape degradation. Taking into consideration the very steep slopes of Costa Viola and the need to analyse with high precision the historical evolution of the terraced landscape, research methods were implemented coupling advanced geomatic techniques with in situ detailed surveys. Based on historical aerial photographs, orthophotos, and numeric cartography, we analysed the land use/land cover change in the period 1955–2014 using photogrammetric and geoprocessing techniques, focusing particularly on trajectories in agricultural terraces. Area covered by active terraces decreased dramatically between 1955 and 2014, from 813.25 to 118.79 ha (−85.4%). The implemented spatial database was built in a free open‐source software taking into consideration spatial accuracies and completeness. Spatial comparison among land use/land cover maps was carried out using a postclassification comparison technique that can provide complete cross‐tabulation matrices. These data were compared with socio‐economic statistics concerning demography and trends of farms with vineyards. The evolutionary dynamics of the active agricultural terraces were also analysed trough the definition of 6 types of spatio‐temporal patterns recognised in the analysed period. These methods allowed to highlight the ongoing dynamics of abandonment of agricultural terraces in relation to their main causes and effects. Although tailored for the specific case study, they can be applied to many other terraced agricultural landscapes presenting similar characteristics and problems.

Worrying about ‘Vertical Landscapes’: Terraced Olive Groves and Ecosystem Services in Marginal Land in Central Italy

“…Earlier studies have quantified the loss of terraced agro-ecosystems in Italy over the past 50 years [19], presenting values close to 40% in Tuscany, central Italy [5,6], 33% in Liguria, northern Italy [69], and 85% in Calabria, southern Italy [27]. In this regard, our study has estimated land-use changes over both long and short time horizons in the identified TLS and proximal buffer area (terraces' contact areas) and the amount of abandoned terraces.…”

“…As a consequence of population aging, land abandonment has largely occurred in terraced landscapes determining biodiversity loss, soil erosion and land degradation [21,26,27]. Land abandonment may indirectly stimulate forest expansion in marginal areas, leading to increased wildfire frequency and intensity [18,28,29].…”

“…In this regard, identification, characterization and mapping of terraced agricultural systems is still partial in Europe [35] and terraced land or stone walls' linear segments are frequently absent from official land-use databases at both country and regional levels [36]. Aiming at sustainable rural land planning, earlier studies have contributed to identifying methodologies to map terraced farmland at a local small scale [4,22,27,37] including a catalogue of traditional land-management practices used in terracing [11].…”

Historic Rural Landscapes: Sustainable Planning Strategies and Action Criteria. The Italian Experience in the Global and European Context

“…Among the Italian rural landscapes the agricultural terraced ones-which characterize many regions such as Cinque Terre (Liguria) [32,33], Costa Viola (Calabria) [34][35][36][37], Costiera Amalfitana (Campania) [38], Valtellina (Lombardy) [39], Chianti (Tuscany) [32,40], Langhe (Piedmont) and so forth-can be seen as the most evident expression of the agricultural landscape as the result of a proper social construction. A construction that there appears as audacious and persevering, sometimes defined as "heroic," in all those cases when communities have intended to colonise for productive reasons harsh and steep lands, otherwise inhospitable, by clearing forests, reshaping land morphology, building retaining walls, stairs, irrigation channels and other functional artefacts [34][35][36][37]39] (Figure 2).…”

Terraced Landscapes on Portofino Promontory (Italy): Identification, Geo-Hydrological Hazard and Management

“…Particularly widespread in the Mediterranean area [6], terraces may be found in the Balearic Islands, in Spain, in France, along the Italian peninsula, in the Balkans and in Greece. In Italy, many authors studied terraced landscapes in the different and various contexts in the country [3,4,8,12,23,[26][27][28][29]. The original morphology has been modified (Figure 1) by terraced system that in some cases extended to the entire slope or even to high percentage of a catchment's surface, with challenging implications in water infiltration and superficial runoff [26,30,31].…”