Assessing the impact of built heritage on the rural landscape through the integration in a GIS of cartographic information and remote-sensed data.

Rural landscapes are the result of the interaction occurred over time between human activities and natural environment. Humanity has built constructions conceived to host farmers and biological productions, that have contributed to increase the level of agricultural productivity, meeting the food demand. This built heritage constitutes now a unique example - due to architectural and technical issues different from other building sectors - which plays indeed a central role in the formation of the rural landscape, as well as on relevant ecosystem services. In this paper, the interactions between historical rural buildings and the surrounding landscape have been examined. A specific geo-database incorporating different datasets from topographical maps, aerial photos and satellite images has been implemented into a GIS. This approach has enabled to assess land dynamics around rural buildings, in terms of land cover and landscape indexes. A case study in an internal mountain area of Southern Italy has been considered. Thanks to a large-scale detailed spatial analysis, the relationships between some rural buildings and the surrounding landscape have been then assessed. This methodology allowed to implement a spatial system finalized to support solutions useful to public decision-makers, as well as to evaluate activities of protection and/or valorisation of the agro-forestry landscapes.