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 homogenization 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.