Rural landscape planning through spatial modelling and image processing of historical maps

Rural land has been affected over the years by profound, complex and difficult to understand transformations due to natural events, human intervention and changes in natural cycles. Nowadays, the analysis of rural land as well as the environment and landscape is made easier and more complete through the use of powerful and reliable tools; many changes can be considered to be models of territorial development that may prove useful in the appropriate planning of interventions in a rural area. In this paper the land use changes in a rural area located in Southern Italy were analysed by comparing some historical cartographic supports produced by the Italian Geographic Military Institute at different periods over about 160 years with modern maps, in order to evaluate the morphological and vegetation variations of agro-forestry land. The results in terms of landscape modification of the study area show significant changes: the agricultural and forestry land has been affected by deep transformations. Land use and morphological changes at four time steps were conducted through the implementation of digital terrain models, which were enriched by draping land cover pictures over them; these finally enabled an evaluation in a scenic way of the morphological and vegetation variations of the agro-forestry landscape, allowing a virtual jump back to periods when digital aerial photography was not yet possible. Multitemporal analysis with the support of GIS techniques has great potential for assessing and monitoring landscape diversity and typical changes of vegetation and for planning sound interventions in landscape structures.