Analysis of land-use change in Mandrolisai 1860 to 2016: a case study from Sardinia (Italy)

The focus on rural landscapes, already present in ‘Agenda 2000’, is reconfirmed for the CAP 2023–2027 (Green Deal). The CAP programmes have, however, often turned out to be generic and unsuited to the multifaceted reality of Mediterranean Europe, while FAO-GIAHS and UNESCO World Heritage programmes suit large territories. Both, as well as the CAP, support the conservation or renaturalisation of rural landscapes but cannot apply prescriptions at the planning stage. In Italy, the ‘Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape’ contains prescriptive measures that the regions must include in their Landscape Plan (RLP); the municipalities must then adopt Urban Plans in accordance with the RLP. In Sardinia, RLP has protected the coastal areas (49.6 per cent of the 24,000 km2 surface area of the island) since 2006 but does not provide detailed guidelines for inland areas. We therefore tested the methodology proposed by the Ministry of Agriculture for recovering Historic Rural Landscapes in a study area of 23.63 km2 located in the heart of the island (in Mandrolisai region), where the two rural villages of Atzara and Sorgono border a system of traditional vineyards. Comparison of the 1860–1880 Land Register data, images from the first (1954) and last air flight (2016) shows that the agro-silvo-pastoral system has not changed structurally. In 2016, 53 per cent of the analysed area retains the same land-use macrocategories as the 1954 aerial photographs. Despite wide fluctuations in some agricultural crops, the most characteristic ones tend to occupy the same places, e.g., 72 per cent of 2016 vineyards compared to 1954. The biggest changes have been the transformation of natural pastures into cork oak wooded pastures, due to the sustained demand for cork.