Landscape analysis in areas affected by land consolidation

Over the past few decades, technological progress has greatly increased the ''human landscape(1)'' at the expense of the natural environment. The result is that the landscape is losing its biological and cultural richness. The area where it is possible to reduce the consequences of human activity on natural ecosystems is the rural landscape. This study was carried out on the northern Italian plain, where the landscape structure has been influenced in some parts by land consolidation works(2) over the years. The purpose was to determine which variables can describe changes in landscape structure and the way these can be handled, by the calculation of several indices and the use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) technology. The analysis of landscape change on different spatial and temporal scales and the comparison of trends in landscape change allowed the effect of land consolidation to be studied. Variation in landscape diversity was strongly related to the development of man-made patches, and it increased in areas uninfluenced by land consolidation. Therefore, the other landscape units have lost diversity as a consequence of their change to agricultural production. A combination of indices showed a trend towards impoverishment, and this was surveyed both in areas affected by landscape consolidation and in areas unaffected by it. Different trends in landscape structure were surveyed in the areas under investigation, and this meant that landscape development was not exclusively connected to works associated with land improvement, but was the result of rural landscape management. It was also found that the greatest change occurred as a consequence of increasing human activity in semi-natural patches which are ecological stabilisers. The increasing separation of semi-natural and human landscapes is therefore inevitable.