140 research outputs found
A network of slow routes between Italian UNESCO sites. A territorial strategy to enhance the in-between territories and the inner areas
No full textThe current paper aims at investigating how a network of slow routes, connecting UNESCO sites, could represent a strategy to enhance the in-between territories and inner areas. Italy counts the highest number of UNESCO World Heritage sites, integrated in rich and varied landscapes. Most of the times, the UNESCO recognition has a positive influence on the sites, preserving and enhancing their natural and cultural values; nevertheless, there is a risk that the attractiveness of each monumental site can also produce negative impacts. Therefore, a broader territorial strategy should be developed to promote a network of slow routes, to improve connections between the sites, and, at the same time, to revitalize the in-between places where spatial, environmental and cultural assets of great value are also present. In this sense, the territorial strategy allows to move the focus from the points (UNESCO sites) to the landscape, enlarging the vision on the whole territory. In this research four different itineraries in Italy have been mapped (north, center, south), with the aim to connect UNESCO sites, but also to include National Parks and other protected areas, minor historic settlements and cultural heritage. The strategy also considers accessibility and mobility issues, by integrating the existing infrastructural network, such as railways and highways, improving intermodality in the nodes (stations and service areas), with specific care to the UN goals of Sustainable
Development (SDG 3, 9 and 11). A specific territorial analysis will focus on the study case of the route in the central Italy, from Ravenna to Cerveteri, passing through Faenza, Firenze, Arezzo, Pienza and Viterbo, that shows how this strategy could work
Mapping spatial quality of slow routes with a GIS-based method. A comparative assessment of alternative routes.
No full textIn the field of cultural tourism, slow routes, especially pedestrian and cycle routes, are considered important resources for sustainable, social and economic development of the territories. The cultural routes, defined by the Council of Europe, have extended the notion of conservation and valorization of cultural heritage to a wider territorial perspective, that allow to join tangible and intangible heritage dimensions, natural and built heritage, in a whole. In this framework, cultural routes, mainly used to rediscover the territory through slow-travel experience, need to be documented and ranked as a system of cultural heritage spread over the territory, by innovative and effective tools. The SQISR method (Spatial Quality Index of Slow Routes), at territorial level, allows to analyze the spatial features of slow routes through GIS-based mapping techniques, but also to compare alternative routes on the base of a set of heterogeneous indicators. The SQIRS method has been applied to evaluate two alternative itineraries of the Monks Route, that cross the agricultural landscape in southern Milan, with aim to document their spatial features and rank them in relation to their spatial quality. The SQISR method, that is based on a quantitative approach, allows to visualize the outcomes by different ways: graded GPS tracks, graphs, diagrams
Parametric definition of slow tourism itineraries for experiencing seasonal landscapes. Application of sentinel-2 imagery to the rural paddy-rice landscape in Northern Italy
No full textSlow tourism is a growing phenomenon in Italy; it is assuming a key role in the definition of new strategies for sustainable tourism for the enhancement of landscape and cultural heritage, but also as a driver for the revitalization of marginalized and inner areas of the country. In this framework, the aesthetical phenomena related to seasonal landscape changes (e.g., autumn coloring foliage, spring blooming, controlled paddy-rice fields flooding) that occur in specific environments are emerging as new tourist destinations and are of major interest for the experiential tourism sector. This research shows a GIS-based method to draw up parametric slow tourism itineraries, which are defined according to seasonal landscape changes, by exploiting the high frequency of Sentinel-2 data acquisition. The algorithm defines parametric itineraries within the network of existing local roads by detecting the current landscape conditions through NDVI. The algorithm has been tested in the study area, within the historical agricultural landscape of paddy-rice fields in between Turin and Milan, where high scenic conditions related to the flooding occur over the spring season. This tool can support a range of end users’ decisions for the creation of a widespread tourist destination offer year-round, with the aim to promote more sustainable and balanced use of the places and reduce overpressures in the most frequented places
Mapping flooded paddy-rice fields in the landscape between Turin and Milan: A GIS-based method for detecting scenic routes for experiential tourism
No full textThe current research aims to explore the potential of ESA Sentinel-2 time-series satellite imagery, for detecting the seasonal landscape changes of paddy-rice fields, in the northwest of Italy, by using GIS mapping tools. On a regional scale context, paddy-rice mapping has several implications for agricultural monitoring, precision farming, food production, water management and climate change. However, it also concerns theirs high scenic value in the landscape perception, which can be a great resource for sustainable tourism. The defining characteristic of paddy-rice is that rice plants grow on flooded soils. In the field of slow tourism, such a temporary site-specific condition of the landscape can become an unconventional tourist destination. The research has been applied to territories in between cities: Turin and Milan, where the phenomenon of paddy-rice flooding, in the spring season, generates an outstanding scenic perception of the rural landscape. The research shows the effectiveness of the GIS workflow to compute the vegetation indices, which are sensitive for mapping flooded paddy-rice fields. The final outcome is a thematic map highlighting the scenic routes in the existing road network that allows experiencing such seasonal landscape conditions
Dalla Foresta Umbra a Matera. In bici nei Parchi e siti Unesco, tra paesaggio e infrastrutture
No full textLo sviluppo del turismo lento, basato sulla valorizzazione di itinerari culturali, cammini, percorsi cicloturistici, ha visto negli ultimi anni uno sviluppo molto intenso, sia con riferimento ad luoghi specifici e tradizionalmente vocati (siti monumentali, parchi e aree protette), sia con la promozione e realizzazione di itinerari estesi, che attraversano nuovi territori anche di margine (cammini storici, percorsi lungo i fiumi, canali e linee ferroviarie dismesse). Il caso di studio che si presenta riguarda un itinerario cicloturistico nel paesaggio pugliese e lucano, tra la Foresta Umbra e Matera, dove si trovano siti UNESCO, beni culturali, centri storici, aree protette e sistemi paesaggistici di grande pregio come quello del Parco dell’Alta Murgia. Il percorso, individuato attraverso un processo di analisi finalizzata al progetto territoriale, mette in evidenza la possibilità di realizzare un sistema unitario, strettamente connesso e integrato alla rete infrastrutturale. Considerando questa particolare condizione territoriale, il contributo analizza alcune criticità e ipotizza strategie di basso costo che partono dal miglioramento del sistema esistente, proponendo soluzioni intermodali e percorsi finalizzati a favorire l’accessibilità turistica lenta del territorio e la realizzazione di un sistema di beni organizzati secondo un modello a rete, che consideri l’intero territorio come patrimonio. Tali azioni, improntate ad una visione di sostenibilità basata sulla mobilità lenta, portano a ricadute positive non solo per i turisti, ma anche a vantaggi duraturi per le comunità locali, inserendosi in pieno tra le Sustainable Development Goals (3, 9 e 11)
Spatial quality index of slow routes. A multi-indicators GIS method for measuring spatial quality in the landscape of southern Milan
No full textThe current research aims at investigating a GIS-based method for measuring spatial quality of slow mobility routes, through mapping and statistical tools, with the aim to compare existing alternative routes but also to support design-choices of new routes. In the field of cultural tourism, slow routes have a great potential for economic and social development, and need to be assessed also in relation to their spatial quality implications. This paper tries to explore the effectiveness of a quantitative multiindicators approach for measuring spatial quality. The method refers to a set of criteria, that allow to measure the spatial quality of slow routes with: cultural heritage density, spatial composition of the crossed landscape, infrastructural connectivity, route-specific features. Each criterion has been assessed through different indicators with GIS tools. The landscape components have been measured through: land-use diversity, waterways, vegetation, protected areas; the level of infrastructural connectivity of the route has been estimated with: number of route-roads intersections and railway stations; the route-specific features have been evaluated through: comfort, user-friendliness and directness. The Monks Route, that crosses the agricultural landscape in the southern Milan, has been considered as case study to test the method. The Spatial Quality Index of Slow Routes (SQISR) is the main outcome of the research and it is shown through: numerical index, graded track and diagrams
Experiencing seasonal landscapes across the Grand Tour UNESCO in Piedmont. A strategy to achieve a more balanced use of the territories based on sustainable tourism
No full textMOBILE APPLICATIONS AS TOOL FOR EXPLOITING CULTURAL HERITAGE IN THE REGION OF TURIN AND MILAN
No full textThe current research aims at showing as applications working on personal mobile communication terminals such as smartphones, can be useful for exploration of places and, at the same time, as tools able to develop interaction between cultural heritage and users. In this sense, the use of smartphone applications can be combined with GIS in order to make a platform of knowledge useful to support research studies in the field of cultural heritage, with specific reference to accessibility issues and to the combined use of integrated technologies like GPS, QR code and GIS, with the final aim to find an useful methodology for collecting data by visitors and visualizing them through mapping techniques. The research shows how the integration of different systems and technologies can be used as method for inquiring the interactions between users and cultural heritage in terms of accessibility to places. GPS devices can be used to record visitors movements (cultural routes) in terms of space and time; QR code can be used for users interaction with cultural heritage (tourists opinion, heritage ranking, facilities, accessibility); GIS software can be used for data management, analysis and mapping (tourist flows, more visited places). The focus of research is about a combination of information related to cultural routes with the information related to single cultural places. The focus of research is about a combination of information related to cultural routes with the information related to single cultural places. The current research shows the potential use of smartphone applications, as mobile device for collecting data, as means to record rides and more visited places by tourists. The research could be divided into three steps; the first one concerns with GPS that can be used to record routes; the second one deals with interaction between tourists and cultural heritage through a system based on QR code; the third one is about GIS, used as tool for management, analysis and visualization of data flows. In the current research, the field of investigation refers both to the territorial scale of Turin - Milan axis, and to the local scale of small cities localized in the territories in between. The research has been applied to Turin - Milan infrastructural axis, with the aim to represent the relationships that can be established between mobility infrastructure and cultural heritage. Such relationships should be intended in terms of accessibility from mobility infrastructure (motorway exit, service areas, railways stations) to cultural heritage localized in the surrounding landscape. The richness of cultural heritage and landscape along the chosen infrastructural bundle represent a great opportunity for territorial development in terms of attractiveness, both for local inhabitants and for tourists. Nowadays, the use of tracking technologies can be applied to investigate tourist flows, behaviors of local inhabitants in the historic city centre, number of visitors in the city and so on. In this sense it is possible to apply these technologies, which are particularly relevant in urban studies, extending them to the territorial scale of the Turin - Milan region. The large amount of available geo-referenced data can be used in different ways and it is very potential for different kind of analysis: it is possible to show tourist flows in the territory, receive information about more visited places, obtain interaction from users and cultural heritage in terms of visitors opinion about the places, give information to tourists about cultural places, monitor the accessibility to the places, understand the use of means of transport and keep under control the impacts of tourism (social, cultural, environmental) on territory. Applications based on smartphones can be considered a powerful device for visitors but also for institutions that are involved in tourism and cultural heritage management. In fact, th
Mapping landscape qualities in inner areas and UNESCO sites in north sicily by a GIS multisource geodatabase
No full textThe research aims to outline a mapping process that incorporates the use of analytic maps, synthetic maps, and diagrams to aid in the development of a strategy for sustainable tourism in the inner areas of the country. The emerging forms of sustainable tourism require a specific territorial strategy, supported by a precise knowledge and mapping process able to include minor places through the accessibility of less-beaten tracks, by creating new synergies between heterogeneous places which are only apparently unconnected with each other. Nowadays, the great availability of geolocalized information, gettable by heterogeneous web sources, enables carrying out a transversal mapping of physical landscape qualities and tourism opportunities, by linking local and global, tangible and intangible networks. The research has been centered on the northern coast of Sicily, in between the UNESCO sites of
Palermo and Cefalù with its inner area of the Madonie UNESCO Global Geopark, where natural and human facts, are strongly interlaced with the landscape, creating a unique territorial configuration. The research shows how a GIS multisource geodatabase, made-up of punctual, linear, and areal entities, related to different fields of investigation, from natural to human, such as geology, nature, history, heritage, food, and culture, can support the definition of new actions in the sustainable tourism sector, in order to enhance the existing heritage. The mapping process, through visual thinking, is configured as a privileged tool for the knowledge of places and for the creation of new forms of representation
Visualizzare i paesaggi stagionali. Il caso del foliage in Italia
No full textQuali strumenti di mappatura possono supportare il processo di analisi, visualizzazione e conoscenza dei fenomeni stagionali del paesaggio? Nel corso dell’anno molti ambiti paesaggistici assumono configurazioni estetiche differenti,
che possono essere determinate da eventi naturali e interventi umani. In questa ricerca si considera il fenomeno scenico del foliage, che si manifesta in particolare nei paesaggi caratterizzati dalla presenza di ampie superfici boscate,
e che in molte zone dell’Italia sta diventando una vera e propria destinazione turistica durante la stagione autunnale. Da un lato, infatti, esistono aree boscate, estese ed uniformi, dove il fenomeno è riconoscibile soprattutto per l’omogeneità delle coloriture autunnali; dall’altro esistono ambiti paesaggistici più variegati, nei quali prevale la diversità delle specie arboree, che determina varietà e ricchezza delle espressioni cromatiche. Sembra tuttavia mancare un quadro conoscitivo di riferimento a scala nazionale che consenta da un lato di visualizzare con precisione gli ambiti territoriali nei quali si manifesta il fenomeno del foliage, e dall’altro di analizzarne le caratteristiche evolutive da un
punto di vista spazio-temporale, con l’obiettivo di definire strategie di sviluppo sostenibile dei territori interessati. L’integrazione in ambiente GIS di geo-informazioni eterogenee, derivanti sia dai dataset relativi alla copertura del suolo, sia dai siti web dei diversi attori attivi nella promozione turistica dei territori, ma anche dalle serie temporali di immagini satellitari multispettrali, consente di visualizzare e interpretare le caratteristiche del fenomeno del foliage
nei diversi ambiti paesaggistici in maniera multi-scalare
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