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Topical - Geoheritage
Geoheritage: Nature and culture
in a landscape approach
Francesca Romana Lugeri, Piero Farabollini*, Gian Vito Graziano and Vittorio Amadio
New environmental problems require new
models for territorial study and innovative
management strategies. The aim of enhancing
local resources can be achieved only by
directing development policies towards a
path of integration between landscape
protection, and socio-economic and cultural
requirements. These functions can
only be based on knowledge, enabled by
new themes, such as wine production, and
disseminated through new media, such as
sports or film. Landscape is the key to the
reading and cartography is the tool. With
modern geographic information systems,
each mapping process is associated with a
database that indicates the value of each
graphic element.
Des nouvelles problématiques environnementales
demandent l’élaboration de nouveaux
modèles pour l’étude du territoire et
des stratégies de gestion innovatrices. Le
but de valoriser les ressources du territoire
peut être atteint uniquement en orientant
les politiques de développement vers
une voie d’intégration entre les exigences
écologiques et de protection du paysage
et les nécessites socio-économiques et
culturelles. Ces fonctions ne peuvent être
basées que sur la connaissance, activé par
de nouveaux thèmes, tels que la production
de vin, et diffusées à travers les nouveaux
médias, comme le sport ou la représentation
filmique. Le paysage est la clé de la
lecture; la cartographie, et les systèmes
d’information géographique, sont l’outil.
Nuevos problemas ambientales requerirá el
desarrollo de nuevos modelos para el estudio
del territorio y de estrategias innovadoras
de gestión. El objetivo de aprovechar
los recursos locales sólo se puede lograr
mediante la dirección de las políticas de
desarrollo hacia un camino de integración
entre los requisitos ambientales y las necesidades
de protección del paisaje y socioeconómicos
y culturales. Estas funciones
sólo se puede basar en el conocimiento,
habilitado por los nuevos temas, tales como
la producción de vino, y difundida a través
de nuevos medios de comunicación, como
los deportes o la representación fílmica. El
paisaje es la clave de lectura, los modernos
sistemas de información geográfica, es la
herramienta.
Landscapes, geosciences and heritage
Territorial and environmental problems,
ever more delicate and dramatic
in Italy, require the constant
presence of the geologist in all social, cultural,
economic and territorial contexts.
A first step in this new direction is to pay
closer attention to environmental geology
and, at the same time, to create new, farreaching
kinds of communication. The
Italian National Council of Geologists
and the Regional Professional Orders are
organizations concerned in this project
and, today more than ever, an efficient and
timely participation in geo-environmental
protection as well as in the field of scientific
communication is urgent. One of the
most important goals is the popularization
of Earth Sciences and the International Year
of Planet Earth has, within a project that
has highlighted scientific heritage helped
to make Earth Sciences more accessible to
the public. Landscape plays a key role in
the knowledge processes: it is the result of
the endogenous and exogenous activities
that mould Earth’s surface and, at the same
time, can be considered the result of the
* Università di Camerino. Piazza Cavour,
1. 62032 Camerino. piero.farabollini@
unicam.it
interaction of many natural and cultural
components; it could become a “medium”
to communicate the Earth Sciences to the
whole of society.
The first step is knowledge and awareness:
the geomorphological sciences are a
powerful tool in order to reach and share a
“sense of natural identity”. The consciousness
of being part of an ecosystem, is
achieved through the knowledge and the
experience of the environment.
Landscape is everywhere, but needs to be
understood and recognized as a heritage;
at the same time it needs to be protected,
in order to become a resource: the quality
of landscape impinges on individual and
social well-being; moreover, as finally ratified
in the European Landscape Convention
(2000), “Landscape is everywhere and is
an essential element of quality of life and
cooperates in the development of local
cultures”. The key role of the landscape is
in its perceptive and symbolic power: it is
what mankind interacts with, from the first
contact with the environment, source of
resources, risk, emotions.
The following are different ways of reading,
studying and researching the landscape,
starting from new methodological
approaches and going through different
interpretative paths and a new concept,
allowing an holistic interpretation of the
landscape where Earth Sciences, as well
as playing a role of primary importance,
also act as a “catalyst”, capable of stirring
emotions that otherwise could not be interpreted
and appreciated.
Landscape approach and GIS
Shape is synthesis: following an Aristotelian
approach in studying nature, it is
almost natural to read land features as the
expression of the endogenous and exogenous
processes that mould Earth surfaces.
The goals of the landscape approach in
the field of geo-environment assessment
and geosciences popularization are basically
the following:
• to provide principles, theoretical reference
criteria and methodologies for
the study of landscape
• to enable environmental diagnosis
and assessments, also through indices
and specific quantitative models
• to provide synthetic models to predict
the evolution of the landscape
• to influence the choice of territorial
conservation and management
European Geologist 34 | November 2012
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