Towards reconstructing rural landscapes: A case study of Italian Mongardino

This paper intends to propose an integrated methodology for reconstructing the rural landscape of Mongardino, a municipality in the cross-border area of the UNESCO Buffer Zone of the ‘Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato’. A multi-source approach was established to detect land use changes that occurred in its dynamic agricultural mosaic from the 17th century to date and intuiting future land-use variations. Qualitative comparisons have combined literature, historical maps from archives, repeated photo- and postcard-based research, statistical dataset interpretations and WebGIS surveys. This research has delineated the significance of historical studies to detect and interpret current matrices of change and build an enhanced comprehension of the evolutionary trajectories of a wine-growing landscape over time. Findings reveal that changes do not follow administrative boundaries but rather linear, non-linear, external and internal dynamics that are local and context-dependent. On the one hand, no asymmetries or prevailing trends have been found between the areas encompassed or not in the UNESCO Buffer Zone. On the other hand, land-use and historical permanencies are detected as indicators of integrity and qualifying landscape elements upon which to build rural strategies and policies for local-based landscape planning and management.