The Crete Senesi, Tuscany: A vanishing landscape?

Abstract

The atypical Tuscan landscape of the Crete Senesi, epitomised by badland features, has been transformed over the last forty years through land reclamation for arable cultivation. It is a process that is ascribable to the land reforms of the 1950s and, during the last decade, to the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). According to Rossi and Vos (1993)[Criteria for the identification of a red list of Mediterranean landscapes: three examples in Tuscany. Landscape Urban Planning 24, 233–239], the cultural landscape of the Crete Senesi should be classified as heavily strained on the Red List of Mediterranean landscapes. However, the results of an investigation into the stability of remodelled land suggest that, in the period following reclamation, the soils stabilise as exchangeable sodium levels decrease. In this respect the badlands are no longer active elements within the environment and, hence, the Crete Senesi should be classified as a vanishing landscape.