Cultural landscape change: the northern Apennines and the southern Alps

During the last decades, urbanization and deagrarianization processes led to depopulation in large parts of Italy's mountain regions. Additionally, many of these areas were designated as National Parks (IUCN category II), especially since the 1990s. Both processes reflect changes of attitude, which impact on the structure of the cultural landscape. Using the example of the Foreste Casentinesi National Park (northern Apennines), the exploratory study “Disappearing Pastures and Abandoned Farmsteads”, supported by the Stiftung der Familie Philip Politzer, aims at analyzing the spatiotemporal patterns of cultural landscape change during 1990–2010. Following a comparative approach to mountain geography, this case study is contrasted with the Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park in the southern European Alps. The hypsometric and central-peripheral variation of geographic forms, as well as the human–environment interaction, is the main center of interest.