Toward an Inventory of Terraced Landscapes

The Journal of Terraced Landscapes

Volume 1 Number 1

Introduction

Toward an Inventory of Terraced Landscapes

Lucija AŽMAN MOMIRSKI

Understanding the importance of the quantity and quality of the phenomena under study—terraced landscapes and terraced slopes—is the basis for all further studies and interpretations. Precise and systematic data are essential for studying terraced landscapes. When the participants engaged in the First World Congress on Terraced Landscapes in Mengzi, China in November 2010 founded the International Terraced Landscapes Alliance (ITLA), we stressed the importance of a global inventory of terraced landscapes. Further ITLA meetings have only confirmed this orientation: the ITLA World Congress in Padua 2016 wrapped up with a proposal to create a global inventory of important and threatened terraced landscapes. We have explored this topic in greater depth in an ITLA working group, recognizing that the issue requires broader participation from ITLA members worldwide.

Several meetings of the ITLA Inventory Working Group were held in 2018 and 2019 to assess the possible criteria for such a project. In the meantime, a working group with Jean-François Blanc, Catherine Blanc, Raimund Rodewald, and Lučka Ažman discussed a possible fact sheet on identifying terraced landscapes for each ITLA national committee as well as for other national working groups of interest, and the feasibility of an inventory based on the Ardèche, Swiss, and Slovenian inventories of terraced landscapes.

The groups considered it useful to distinguish the following aspects in an inventory: 1) typology and spatial significance (with a focus on terraced landscapes mainly still in use) and 2) the current state of terraced landscapes (their cultivation extent: maintenance and restoration; and their state of decay: partial abandonment or abandonment). The topic of the discussion included several other questions, such as the following:

• At which level should a national or international inventory be established? • Which digital database could be useful for comparison (Google Maps, Google

Earth)? • How can national inventory programs be financed? • Who collects the national data and integrates them into a worldwide map?

However, this diversity of landscapes referred to as terraced landscapes is generally not supported or confirmed by specialized inventories that identify and classify their elements. Thus, there are different classifications of terraced landscapes based on different viewpoints or interests. The first issue of The Journal of Terraced Landscapes presents several studies on the inventory of terraced landscapes.

The aim of the study “Cartography of the Terraces (socalcos) in Galicia (Northwest Spain): An Original Approach” by Augusto Pérez Alberti is to show the extent of terraced landscapes in Galicia, the northwesternmost part of Spain, and to present the history of the first inventories of the area, the precise methodology used to carry out the inventories, the land use of the selected terraced slopes, and the plant species found on the terraces.

In their article “Inventories of Terraced Landscapes in Peru,” Timmi Tillmann, Jorge Novo, and Mirbel Epiquién provide an overview of the inventories of terraced landscapes in Peru. The first mentions of terraced landscapes in Peru are several centuries old, and the first inventories date from more than forty years ago. The article compares past inventories and calls for intensifying inventories in the future by supporting local communities to participate in the inventory work.

Yuichi Kuroda’s article “The Current Situation and Efforts to Conserve Rice Terraces in Japan” shows that the rice terraces there, known as tanada, are synonymous with rural landscapes in Japan. The article focuses on the approaches and efforts through which non-governmental initiatives and the Japanese government are contributing to the conservation of rice terrace landscapes.

In Peru, terraced landscapes within city limits are a special case; one such example is seen in “Arequipa: A City with Terraces in Southern Peru,” an article by Mario E. Tapia, Ana María Fries, and Jorge Novo. The expansion of cities always poses a threat to the existence of terraced slopes. The water resources needed for the terraces to function are particularly at risk.

To understand the state of terraced landscapes today, it is important to be familiar with a broader historical context, as Sevina Floridou presents in her article “The Small Vast World: Abandonment and Revival of Terraced Vineyards in Salamiou, Cyprus.” The relationships between population, trade, settlements, and land use form the whole space in which terraced landscapes provide an important lesson about life—and the value of life and the message of the terraced slopes is joy, love, and happiness.

Similar conclusions—the importance of the interaction between society and environment in the past and present, but in a different geographical area—can be drawn from “Characterizing the Terraced Landscapes of the Island of Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain)” by Lidia Romero, Néstor Marrero-Rodríguez, Leví García-Romero, Sara Santana-Santana, Emma Pérez-Chacón Espino, and Elisabeth Fernández-Cabrera. The article presents the first detailed mapping of terraced slopes on the island.

Of course, answers were not provided to all the questions raised, but the topic of the inventory is so broad that progress is measured in small but decisive steps. I am convinced that this first issue of The Journal of Terraced Landscapes will contribute to making investigations of terraces even more numerous and detailed.