Mining activity and island landscape issues: evidence from Cyclades islands, Greece

ABSTRACT

This paper maps the visual impact of mining activities on terrestrial and marine landscapes of the Cyclades islands, Greece, an island complex in the Aegean Sea of particular natural and cultural heritage. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, mining activities developed on the islands, many of which are abandoned today. Some of the remaining inactive mines and accompanying structures have been registered as monuments and part of the national industrial heritage. The remaining active mining units conflict for land with the main economic activity today, tourism. The visual impact of the mining units is calculated and mapped, resulting in viewshed analysis which quantifies the impact of mining units on terrestrial and marine landscapes, with emphasis on nominated traditional settlements and mention of non-traditional ones. The quantitative results have shown that the landscape study needs to be incorporated in terrestrial and marine spatial planning.

KEYWORDS:

• Mining activity
• landscape
• spatial planning
• marine spatial planning
• Cyclades
• Greece

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Evangelia-Theodora Derdemezi is supported for this research by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) under the HFRI PhD Fellowship grant (Fellowship Number: 179).