Landscape and Human Settlements in Rural Areas, a Diachronic Analysis Using Landscape Metrics and Topographic Indices. The Municipalities of Vico Equense and Sorrento, Sorrento Peninsula, Italy

Abstract Besides their primary function linked to agricultural activities, rural buildings have been for centuries also a distinctive element of the Italian landscape. The present study explores the intrinsic correlation between rural buildings and landscape, highlighting how the first ones shaped and/or were affected by the rural landscape. The study focuses on traditional and cost-effective architectures in a typical context of southern Italy, the Sorrento’ Peninsula, historically marked by small land properties with direct soil management, and nowadays subjected to various pressures: from housing to infrastructure, to tourism. The landscape analysis covers about 60 years, starting from the Italian Touring club Land Use map (1960), until to the 2018 Corine Land Cover map . For the building analysis, data were retrieved from the topographic map of the Italian Military Geographical Institute (1957) and from the Regional Technical map of the Campania Region (2004–2005). This research critically examined rural systems, mapping buildings and connecting them to the surrounding landscape, basing on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) support, landscape metrics assessment and topographic factors analysis. The results showed significant transformations in landscape and rural settlements (−20% of agricultural areas; +30% of forest and semi-natural areas; +67 urban areas), highlighting the strong pressure to which the territory is subjected today due to land consumption. The aim of the work is to support the landscape management and the policy makers activities to foreseen specific interventions to landscape protection and valorisation, considering both the historical building heritage and the local community development issues.