Stability analysis for defining management strategies in abandoned mountain landscapes of the Mediterranean basin

The semi-natural landscapes of Mediterranean mountains underwent a remarkable land abandonment in the past decades. These large perturbation-dependent landscapes then evolved into new meta-stable states to balance human pressures and natural components with a general pattern homogenisation and several consequences on landscape services. These areas need effective management strategies to conserve a wide functionality allowing, at the same time, the sustainable development of population. Lack of resources and achievable restoration goals often hamper these objectives to be reached. In this paper, a study of pattern change is proposed using five landscape metrics and a stability analysis of features derived from land cover maps in order to investigate their magnitude and rate of change in a mountain municipality of central Italy between two separate time periods (1954-1985 and 1985-1999). A Kappa statistic (Kappa Index of Agreement), a Markov chain model and a Kruskal-Wallis test were employed. The results showed that shape and size of woodlands, open areas and buildings patches were significantly changed during the second period (1985-1999), with a concurrent abrupt reduction in the rate of change for each land cover, confirming that a new meta-stable state of equilibrium between human land use and natural processes of secondary succession was being approached. A discussion of management strategies for such equilibrium is therefore proposed to contribute to the development of effective conservation actions for the semi-natural landscapes of Mediterranean Basin. The presented approach aims to stimulate the inclusion of stability analysis into the planning and management of abandoned landscapes. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.