“Mapping the Extreme Terres”: A Socio-Ecological Strategy in Response to the Critical Condition of the Italian Hinterland of Val di Sole

Abstract

Vulnerable topographies and morphologies are reservoirs of resilience in reacting to social, economic, and environmental crises in the Italian Hinterlands. Moreover, the pandemic situation of recent years has influenced people’s values and priorities, allowing us to reconsider the value of lands outside urban centres. In Italy, overcoming a contrasting vision between cities and inland areas brings out a relationship of interdependence between territories, a fragile balance to be investigated and reconnected. The contribution of this paper aims to investigate the current state of vulnerability of these hinterlands, crossed by continuous phenomena and by discrete or sudden phenomena, to represent the tangible and intangible space to fully understand the performativity of these territories. The methodology used lies in an intermediate space between the values process of landscape ecology, which sees as its starting point the investigation of tangible land effects, and the quantitative-qualitative approach of mapping. A scale of values is assigned through the use of GIS-assisted multi-criteria evaluation. The proposed methodology is set and applied in the case of Val di Sole, Trentino, to spatialise the relationship between risk and resources in Italy’s hinterlands.