Terraced landscapes located in areas of great value for touristic purposes as an irreversible practice

Since Neolithic, terraced landscapes have been an essential element for moulding mountain or steep slope into habitable arable areas. Over the last decades, they have been subjected to a quick abandonment because of their inadequate economic competitiveness causing a gap in their maintenance and, consequently, incrementing the hydrogeological instability of those areas. Minori is a small municipality (256 ha), protected by UNESCO, located in Amalfi Coast. That area is well known not only for the beauty of its territory but also for some catastrophic raining events, like in 1954 when a rain shower of 500 mm topped up to 24 hours. The current research work intends to analyse the landscape changes in Minori over sixty year period (1956 - 2017) for assessing the new values taken on the land use and the agricultural sites. A detailed orthophoto and a high resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the study area have been reconstructed using the historical photogrammetric photos of 1954, acquired by the Italian Military Geographic Institute (IGM), and the aerial photogrammetric pictures of 2017, obtained by an own flight. DEM and orthophoto have been reconstructed applying Agisoft Photoscan Professional. The resolution of the generated DEM is equal to 0.48 and 0.1 m for 1956 and 2017, respectively. The orthophoto resolution is of 0.24 and 0.07 for 1956 and 2017, respectively. Comparing the generated products of the two periods, it is pointed out that terraces extension has not been amended, while the amount of human constructions have increased of about 800%. To give a first idea of the most vulnerable areas to be investigated more in depth through simulation procedures, a first proposal of an expeditious index of vulnerability (EVI) has been introduced and tested. It is based on the ratio between the amount of surface occupied by buildings and the amount of areas subjected to a debris flow event. The increase of the vulnerability, exposure values and probability of accident occurring involve a risk rise

Geomorphometry 2020. Conference Proceedings

Geomorphometry is the science of quantitative land surface analysis. It gathers various mathematical, statistical and image processing techniques to quantify morphological, hydrological, ecological and other aspects of a land surface. Common synonyms for geomorphometry are geomorphological analysis, terrain morphometry or terrain analysis and land surface analysis. The typical input to geomorphometric analysis is a square-grid representation of the land surface: a digital elevation (or land surface) model. The first Geomorphometry conference dates back to 2009 and it took place in Zürich, Switzerland. Subsequent events were in Redlands (California), Nánjīng (China), Poznan (Poland) and Boulder (Colorado), at about two years intervals. The International Society for Geomorphometry (ISG) and the Organizing Committee scheduled the sixth Geomorphometry conference in Perugia, Italy, June 2020. Worldwide safety measures dictated the event could not be held in presence, and we excluded the possibility to hold the conference remotely. Thus, we postponed the event by one year - it will be organized in June 2021, in Perugia, hosted by the Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection of the Italian National Research Council (CNR IRPI) and the Department of Physics and Geology of the University of Perugia. One of the reasons why we postponed the conference, instead of canceling, was the encouraging number of submitted abstracts. Abstracts are actually short papers consisting of four pages, including figures and references, and they were peer-reviewed by the Scientific Committee of the conference. This book is a collection of the contributions revised by the authors after peer review. We grouped them in seven classes, as follows: • Data and methods (13 abstracts) • Geoheritage (6 abstracts) • Glacial processes (4 abstracts) • LIDAR and high resolution data (8 abstracts) • Morphotectonics (8 abstracts) • Natural hazards (12 abstracts) • Soil erosion and fluvial processes (16 abstracts) The 67 abstracts represent 80% of the initial contributions. The remaining ones were either not accepted after peer review or withdrawn by their Authors. Most of the contributions contain original material, and an extended version of a subset of them will be included in a special issue of a regular journal publication

Human History and Digital Future

Korrigierter Nachdruck. Im Kapitel "Wallace/Moullou: Viability of Production and Implementation of Retrospective Photogrammetry in Archaeology" wurden die Acknowledgemens enfternt.The Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, held between March 19th and 23th, 2018 at the University of Tübingen, Germany, discuss the current questions concerning digital recording, computer analysis, graphic and 3D visualization, data management and communication in the field of archaeology. Through a selection of diverse case studies from all over the world, the proceedings give an overview on new technical approaches and best practice from various archaeological and computer-science disciplines

Landscape Archaeology between Art and Science

Researchers in landscape archaeology use two different definitions of landscape. One definition (landscape as territory) is used by the processual archaeologists, earth scientists, and most historical geographers within this volume. By contrast, post-processual archaeologists, new cultural geographers and anthropologists favour a more abstract definition of landscape, based on how it is perceived by the observer. Both definitions are addressed in this book, with 35 papers that are presented here and that are divided into six themes: 1) How did landscape change?; 2) Improving temporal, chronological and transformational frameworks; 3) Linking landscapes of lowlands with mountainous areas; 4) Applying concepts of scale; 5) New directions in digital prospection and modelling techniques, and 6) How will landscape archaeology develop in the future? This volume demonstrates a worldwide interest in landscape archaeology, and the research presented here draws upon and integrates the humanities and sciences. This interdisciplinary approach is rapidly gaining support in new regions where such collaborations were previously uncommon

Forest landscapes and global change. New frontiers in management, conservation and restoration. Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology Working Group International Conference

This volume contains the contributions of numerous participants at the IUFRO Landscape Ecology Working Group International Conference, which took place in Bragança, Portugal, from 21 to 24 of September 2010. The conference was dedicated to the theme Forest Landscapes and Global Change - New Frontiers in Management, Conservation and Restoration. The 128 papers included in this book follow the structure and topics of the conference. Sections 1 to 8 include papers relative to presentations in 18 thematic oral and two poster sessions. Section 9 is devoted to a wide-range of landscape ecology fields covered in the 12 symposia of the conference. The Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology Working Group International Conference register the growth of scientific interest in forest landscape patterns and processes, and the recognition of the role of landscape ecology in the advancement of science and management, particularly within the context of emerging physical, social and political drivers of change, which influence forest systems and the services they provide. We believe that these papers, together with the presentations and debate which took place during the IUFRO Landscape Ecology Working Group International Conference – Bragança 2010, will definitively contribute to the advancement of landscape ecology and science in general. For their additional effort and commitment, we thank all the participants in the conference for leaving this record of their work, thoughts and science

Multimetal smithing : An urban craft in rural settings?

Multimetal smithing should be defined as the use of more than one metal and/or different metalworking techniques within thesame crafts-milieu. This complex metalworking has long been linked to centrality, central places and urbanity in Scandinavia.It has been extensively argued that fine casting and smithing, as well as manufacture utilizing precious metals was exclusivelyundertaken within early urban settings or the “central places” pre-dating these. Furthermore, the presence of complex metalcraftsmanship has been used as a driving indicator of the political, social and economic superiority of certain sites, therebyenhancing their identity as “centralities”.Recent research has come to challenge the universality of this link between urbanity, centrality and complex metalworkingas sites in rural settings with evidence of multimetal smithing are being identified. This shows that the relationship between thecraft and centrality (urbanity) must be nuanced and that perhaps multimetal craftsmanship should be reconsidered as an urbanindicator.The thesis project “From Crucible and onto Anvil” started in 2015 and focuses on sites housing remains of multimetalcraftsmanship dating primarily from 500-1000 AD. Within the project a comprehensive survey of sites will be used to evaluate thepresence of multimetal craftsmanship in the landscape. Sites in selected target areas will also be subject to intra-site analysisfocusing on workshop organisation, production output, metalworking techniques and chronological variances.A key aim in the project is to elucidate the conceptual aspects of complex metalworking. The term multimetality is used toanalytically frame all the societal and economic aspects of multimetal craftsmanship. Through this inclusive perspective both thecraftsmanship and the metalworkers behind it are positioned within the overall socioeconomic framework. The metalworkers,their skills and competences as well as the products of their labour are viewed as dynamic actors in the landscape and on thearenas of political economy of the Late Iron Age.The survey has already revealed interesting aspects concerning multimetal smithing and urbanity. Although the multimetalsites do cluster against areas of early urban development there are also other patterns emerging. Multimetal craftsmanship – both as practice and concept – was well represented in both rural peripheral settings and urban crafts-milieus. This means that therole of multimetality as part of an “urban conceptual package” is crucial to investigate. Such an approach will have the dual endsof properly understanding the craft and its societal implications, but also further the knowledge of the phenomenon of urbanityas a whole. Was multimetal smithing part of an “urban package” that spread into the rural landscape? Did the multimetality differbetween urban and rural crafts-milieus? How does early urbanity relate to the chronology of multimetal craftsmanship?This paper aims to counter these questions using examples from the survey of multimetal sites conducted within the thesisproject. A comparison between selected sites will be presented. The purpose of this is to evaluate the role of multimetality withinthe “urban package” and discuss the role of complex metalworking in the establishment of urban arenas of interaction in LateIron Age Scandinavia

A novel approach for detecting agricultural terraced landscapes from historical and contemporaneous photogrammetric aerial photos

Terraces are the most distinctive sign of human activity on the shape of the Earth surface. Their construction has increased the soils permeability and reduced the slope gradient of mountains since those territories could be exploited both for agricultural and habitable purposes. Over the last decades, they have been the subject of a quick abandonment due to their scarce competitiveness. This has caused some environmental problems, such as soil degradation and hydrological instability. Minori in Italy is one of the most ancient municipalities in the Mediterranean area characterized by the presence of terraces. This paper intends to develop a method for automatic extraction of terraces from historical and contemporaneous aerial photos using an Object-based Image Analysis (OBIA) approach. Historic photos from 1956, acquired by the Geographical Military Institute (IGM), and a contemporaneous block of RGB and multispectral images, taken in 2017 of the study area have been processed to generate a high resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and detailed orthophotos. Subsequently, the OBIA classification has been applied for producing a binary map of terraced and not terraced landscapes for both datasets. Orthophoto resolution was equal to 240 mm, 7 mm and 15 mm for the historical, RGB and multispectral pictures, respectively. DEM resolution results equal to 480 mm and 0.19 mm for the historical and RGB set of data. The R 2 between the check points and the estimated values, generated during the metric reconstructions of the two obtained DEMs, resulted equal to 0.99 for both datasets (1956 and 2017). The classification accuracy of the generated binary maps (terraced/not terraced landscapes) were equal to 93% and 98%, respectively. The developed approach looks promising for the historical and contemporaneous datasets. That outcome is essential because it allows to detect terraces position and to compare them over the years in order to analyse their evolution and geomorphological changes. </p