Land-use modifications and ecological implications over the past 160 years in the central Apennine mountains

ABSTRACT

Today’s Mediterranean landscapes result from the interaction between ecosystems and anthropogenic activities. This study aims to assess how the land-use changes between the mid-nineteenth and end of the twentieth century influenced the temporal continuity of the ecosystems in central Apennines (central Italy). Information was acquired from Gregorian cadastral maps, orthophotos and aerial photos (1850, 1954, 1980 and 2010), digitised and georeferenced using QGIS 3.10.1 software. Marked changes in land-use types were found. From 1850 to 1954, grasslands were widely transformed into arable lands, but in the next 60 years they changed again into new grasslands and forests. Forests underwent a slow but continuous expansion from 1850 to 2010. Only a small percentage of the forest and grassland patches (14 and 16%, respectively) have seen ecological continuity. These considerations call attention to temporal continuity of ecosystems, together with the historical dynamism of landscapes, in defining land management and nature conservation policies.

KEYWORDS:

• Past land-use
• historical legacy
• ecosystem stability
• Mediterranean landscapes
• biodiversity
• natural vegetation modification

Disclosure statement

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

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary under Grant GINOP-2.3.2-15-2016-00019

Notes on contributors

Arianna Ferrara

Arianna Ferrara won the scholarship ‘Ecology and Management of the Apennine grassland systems’ at the University of Camerino, Italy, and is a plant ecologist focusing mainly on the use of functional traits in the study of plant community composition and assembly. Her skills range from data collection in the field, data elaboration in the lab and data analysis with the use of R software. Starting in 2020, she is an attendant at the Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany in Hungary, for the Erasmus programme, integrating the use of plant functional traits with ethnoecology.

Marianna Biró

Marianna Biró is a botanist and ecologist is a member of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Research Group at the Centre for Ecological Research, Hungary. Her main research topics are landscape history, landscape management, changes of Natura 2000 habitats, impacts of extensive grazing in wetlands and trends of long-term vegetation changes since the late eighteenth century based on historical maps, written historical sources, vegetation surveys and oral history interviews, as well as traditional ecological knowledge of locals in Hungary, Romania and Serbia.

Luca Malatesta

Luca Malatesta is a plant ecologist working in the fields of environmental conservation and systemic land use planning. He has collaborated with international cooperation projects in Socotra Island (Yemen), Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland, for pastoral systems management, (semi-)arid grasslands biodiversity conservation, thematic cartography and biological collections digitisation and maintenance. His scientific interests focus on vegetation description, analysis and mapping, conservation of endangered species and ecosystem services and functions, arid and semi-arid ecosystems management in face of livestock grazing, climate change and biodiversity data sharing.

Zsolt Molnár

Zsolt Molnár is a botanist and ethnoecologist and is the leader of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Research Group at the Centre for Ecological Research, Hungary. He has conducted research in Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and more recently in Mongolia on traditional and local knowledge of herders and farmers on plants, vegetation, landscapes and their changes, particularly focusing on nature conservation issues and on knowledge co-production with locals in order to avoid or resolve conflicts with conservation and foster traditional land management. He was a coordinating lead author of the IPBES Global Assessment and is a member of the IPBES Indigenous and Local Knowledge Task Force.

Stefano Mugnoz

Stefano Mugnoz is an architect and managing partner of U-Space with experience in preparation and management of national and EU Community-funded projects. He is a specialist in urban regeneration of historical city centres, he also developed high expertise in sustainable development, energy efficiency, urban planning and policies at local level. Since 2006, he has collaborated with the Spatial Planning Department of the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’ and with the Department of Urban Studies of the University of Roma Tre. Since July 2018, he has been a research fellow at the University of Camerino (School of Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine).

Federico Maria Tardella

Federico Maria Tardella has a PhD in Sciences and Technologies the Environment, Nature and Human Health from the School of Advanced Studies and is a technician of the Herbarium Universitatis Camerinensis at the University of Camerino (School of Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine). His fields of expertise include plant systematics, vegetation analysis, monitoring and mapping, plant ecology, ecosystems management, biodiversity conservation, geobotany applied to land planning, evaluation of the effects of plans, projects and activities on habitats of community interest in Natura 2000 sites, geobotanic quality maps.

Andrea Catorci

Andrea Catorci is Associate Professor in Environmental and Applied Botany at the University of Camerino (School of Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine), with skills in geobotany, biodiversity conservation, ecology and ecosystems management, landscape ecology, applied botany and land planning, sustainable development of local communities, planning of wood-energy chains, management plans and conservation measures for Natura 2000 sites, evaluation of the effects of plans, projects and activities on plant communities and ecosystems.