Effetti sul paesaggio derivanti da una strategia di mitigazione dell’erosione del suolo: una valutazione economica integrata

Abstract

The focus of this thesis is the soil erosion mitigation with the relative effects on the economic of landscape. Its aim is to implement a transdisciplinary approach to provide an economic valuation methodology with quantitative variables that effectively represent landscape bio-physical components and individuals’ perception of them. In this short presentation it is provided the basic concepts and a general overview of the novelty and the main phases of the valuation procedure to introduce the reader to the thesis’ topic. The starting point is to define the good that is intended to be valued, and in the case of landscape this is not so straightforward. In fact, many definitions have been used depending on the objectives of the specific study, until the European Landscape Convention (ELC) in 2000 has made its great contribution towards a unifying definition, in view of a more integrated approach to landscape analysis and planning. The ELC definition of landscape is the one I have referred to in the developments of the research ideas and work. Landscape as an integrating concept, as it is put forward by the ELC, in fact, paves the way to integration of disciplines and researchers involved in landscape analysis and to a wider adoption of a holistic approach to such analysis. In particular, for environmental economists or, even more, landscape economists, this is a crucial stage of economic methodologies development and their effective use in landscape planning. All these concepts will be fully introduced and discussed in the thesis. The concern for soil erosion degradation and the call for a more active intervention for its protection have stimulated a wide scientific and political debate that have culminated in some major changes in the public and political attitude, and in the researchers’ approach to soil erosion mitigation and its effects on landscape. Policy makers ask scientists to better inform landscape planners so that society’s demand for a more efficient management of this scarce resource can be met with limited financial resources. Landscape economists can provide a fundamental contribution in terms of knowledge of people’s preferences and monetary values. Agronomists suggest efficient planning procedures for mitigating the effects of soil erosion. However, some issues need to be tackled for economic methodologies to be fully integrated in the decision making process. In particular, economic models must be able to properly represent landscapes together with people’s perception of landscapes. This means that, on the one hand, there is a need for landscape economic valuation; on the other hand, the methodologies adopted to meet this demand need to resolve some issues. These are the political and methodological motivations that support the work of this thesis and will be further discussed in the third section of this chapter. To tackle some of the landscape economic valuation issues, this thesis introduces some elements of novelty related to the transdisciplinary approach implemented: this thesis proposes an intensive integration of concepts and methodologies from agronomic and landscape disciplines to improve the valuation of landscape in stated preference (SP) methods, by using the actual landscape frames in the alternative scenarios of the valuation models.