The Landscape Change in the Alps—What Postcards Have to Say about Aesthetic Preference
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Study Area
2.2. ES Evaluation
2.2.1. Provisioning ES
- Forest
- Cattle
- Number of animals raised as cattle in the area. In the last few decades, bovine breeding decreased while sheep and goat breeding increased due to many factors, including economic convenience and human migration from and to the mountains; a complete description can be found in Zanella et al. [35].
- Priority habitats
- We measured the extension of the open (non-forest) priority habitats present in the area according to Natura 2000 (European Environmental Agency) over time. We used the map of priority habitat provided by the PAT. The following habitats were considered: “open areas species-rich Nardus grasslands (Natura2000 code 6230)”; “Semi-natural dry grasslands (Festuco-Brometalia) (6219)”; and “Active raised bogs” (7100) and other bogs. The past extension of these habitats was manually digitised against historical aerial imagery, assuming that they extended where the forest invaded the area around the present priority habitats. This estimation is conservative, as former open areas could have hosted priority habitats but were not presently mapped because they completely turned into forest.
- Timber
- The total forest growing stock almost doubled in Primiero between 1960 and 2015, increasing from 3,336,357 to 6,322,134 m [36,37]. The process was fostered by a nature-based silviculture approach implemented by the Trentino Forest Agency to guarantee sustainable forest management [38]. With this approach, both tree density and species diversity increased, thereby leading also to a more productive forest in terms of timber quality and quantity [6]. Nevertheless, wood demand cannot be satisfied from the local wood supply chain and the wood industry must rely on foreign markets.
- Wildlife:
- We used the data of recreational hunting to assess how the presence of four species changed through time.
- Deer (Cervus elaphus) were extinct in the area in the 1950 because of habitat loss and over-hunting. In 1963, 7–8 individuals escaped from captivity and repopulated the area; then followed a reintroduction program [39].
- Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) was never extinct in the study area, even if the population was very small in the 1950s. Roe deer ecology requires an alternation of forests and open areas, which are needed by the species for foraging. Competition with deer and open habitats loss led to a decrease in number and in average weight of the gamed individuals.
- Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) has always been present in the study area for the time span considered in this work. The capercaillie is an icon of alpine conservation, because it requires a series of different habitats to complete its annual life cycle: from open meadows for lek, to mature woodlands in the winter and finally to a thick under-storey during chick breeding. The hunting of this bird was not regulated until 1973; then the number of game capercaillie was assigned by the local government based on counts until 1991, when hunting it was legally banned due to the decline of the population [40]. Despite the ban, the species is still declining in the park area due to habitat changes [9].
- The black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) is the only member of its family (tetraonidae) whose hunting is legal in Trentino. The black grouse has similar ecological needs to those of the capercaillie, and the afforestation trend reduced and fragmented its habitat. The species has been considered stable since 1994, thanks to the forest management within the park, with some exceptions in limited areas of the Park, such as the Paneveggio forests, where it is still declining. The species can be hunted in only one sector of the park, but the bird is now so rare that hunting is limited to one unit per year.
2.2.2. Regulating and Maintenance ES
- Flood protection
- Hydrological risk was ranked into 5 classes, from R0 (no risk) to R4 (very high risk). We considered as protection forests the areas that overlapped with classes of moderate, average, high and very high risk.
- Avalanche protection
- Avalanche areas were also taken from PGUAP. The area of protection forest was obtained by GIS by overlapping forest extent over time with the risk map provided by the PGUAP [41].
- Landslide protection
- Was similarly calculated from the PGUAP map [41].
- Boulder protection
- To estimate the amount of forest that provided protection from boulders, we used the vector map of “forest with protective function against boulder falling” (1:10,000) provided by the Forest and wildlife service of PAT. We considered those areas mapped as forests with direct protection in each reference year.
- Carbon storage
- The carbon stored in the forest was estimated from the forest inventories available from the Forest Service of the Province of Trento [36,42,43]. Biomass estimation and thus the carbon stock calculation were based on Notarangelo et al. [44]. The total carbon stock used in this work accounted for above and below ground biomass, dead wood, litter and soil.
2.2.3. Cultural ES: Aesthetic Value from Postcards
3. Results
4. Discussion
4.1. Ecosystem Services over Time
4.2. Aesthetic Preferences Assessed through Postcards
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Abbreviations
ACT | Associazione Cacciatori Trentini (Trento hunting association) |
BW | Black and White |
CES | Cultural Ecosystem Services |
ES | Ecosystems Services |
GLM | Generalised Linear Models |
PAT | Provincia Autonoma di Trento (Autonomous Province of Trento) |
PGUAP | Piano Generale di Utilizzazione delle Acque Pubbliche (General Plan of public water use) |
PPSM | Paneveggio Pale di S. Martino Nature Park |
RES | Recreational Ecosystems Services |
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Service | Source | 1954 | 1973 | 1983 | 1994 | 2006 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Provisioning | ||||||
Forest cover % | [3] | 41.7 | 41.8 | 45.09 | 47.87 | 52.01 |
Natura2000 (ha) | This work | 65.55 | 52. 52 | 49.83 | 38.24 | 36.63 |
Growing stock (m) | [36,42,43] | 3,336,357 ** | 4,371,132 | 5,416,336 | 5,976,859 | 6,159,652 |
Cattle (N) | [3] | 2120 | 1999 | 1736 | 1744 | 1381 |
Sheep (N) | [3] | 734 | 637 | 108 | 3028 | 2655 |
Roe deer(N) | ACT data | 42 * | 105 | 140 | 301 | 63 |
Deer (N) | ACT data | 0 | 0 | 0 | 24 | 159 |
Capercaillie (N) | ACT data | 3 * | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Black grouse (N) | ACT data | 10 * | 5 | 4 | 5 | 1 |
Regulating | ||||||
Protection from Slides (km) | This work | 34.9 | 34.8 | 38.9 | 39.3 | 46.0 |
Protection from avalanches (km) | This work | 5.6 | 5.6 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 7.6 |
Protection from flooding (km) | This work | 210.2 | 209.4 | 210.4 | 216.6 | 231.8 |
Protection from Boulders (km) | This work | 6.6 | 7.1 | 7.7 | 8.0 | 8.8 |
Total carbon stock (m) | This work | 1,757,881 | 2,303,071 | 2,853,756 | 3,149,078 | 3,245,386 |
Cultural | ||||||
Aesthetic value (Postcards sold) | This work |
Postcard Main Subject | Printed Items | Percent |
---|---|---|
Church | 21,000 | 6.5 |
Fiera in 1950 | 3000 | 0.9 |
Fiera in 1970 | 55,000 | 17.2 |
Fiera in 1980 | 11,000 | 3.4 |
Fiera in 1990 | 6000 | 1.9 |
Flowers and animals | 7000 | 2.2 |
Hotel | 6000 | 1.9 |
Lake | 15,500 | 4.8 |
Alpine house | 8000 | 2.5 |
Landscape | 114,000 | 35.5 |
Village | 17,000 | 5.3 |
Alpine hut | 29,500 | 9.2 |
Postcard Main Subject | Estimate | Std. Error | p-Value |
---|---|---|---|
(Intercept) | 8.343 | 0.007 | <0.01 |
Fiera in 1950 | −0.336 | 0.019 | <0.01 |
Fiera in 1970 | 0.679 | 0.008 | <0.01 |
Fiera in 1980 | 0.269 | 0.012 | <0.01 |
Fiera in 1990 | −0.336 | 0.015 | <0.01 |
Flowers and animals | 0.511 | 0.014 | <0.01 |
Hotel | −0.336 | 0.015 | <0.01 |
Lake | 0.207 | 0.010 | <0.01 |
Alpine house | −0.049 | 0.013 | <0.01 |
Landscape | 0.502 | 0.008 | <0.01 |
Village | 0.012 | 0.010 | 0.25 |
Alpine hut | −0.130 | 0.009 | <0.01 |
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Tattoni, C.; Grilli, G.; Araña, J.; Ciolli, M. The Landscape Change in the Alps—What Postcards Have to Say about Aesthetic Preference. Sustainability 2021, 13, 7426. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137426
Tattoni C, Grilli G, Araña J, Ciolli M. The Landscape Change in the Alps—What Postcards Have to Say about Aesthetic Preference. Sustainability. 2021; 13(13):7426. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137426
Chicago/Turabian StyleTattoni, Clara, Gianluca Grilli, Jorge Araña, and Marco Ciolli. 2021. "The Landscape Change in the Alps—What Postcards Have to Say about Aesthetic Preference" Sustainability 13, no. 13: 7426. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137426