Integrated Approach for the Inventory and Management of Geomorphological Heritage at the Regional Scale

Abstract

Due to the renewed interest for sites of geological interest, both in nature conservation and tourist sectors, numerous regional and national geosite inventories have been carried out in several countries during the last two decades. Several research groups discussed methodological issues, in particular concerning the assessment, and proposed various assessment methods. The University of Lausanne developed a method for assessing the scientific and additional values of geomorphosites in 2007. The method was widely used in regional inventories in Switzerland and abroad. This paper presents a new version of the method and discusses four main issues: (1) the assessment methodology is included in a larger process, from the selection of potential geomorphosites to their use and evaluation by stakeholders; (2) a particular attention is put on the selection of potential geomorphosites that will then be assessed and a simple approach crossing a spatial selection (the selected geomorphosites should be representative of the regional geomorphological processes) and a temporal one (the selected geomorphosites should cover the whole temporal stages of the regional morphogenesis, with both relict and active landforms) is proposed; (3) a new part is added in the assessment method; it concerns the use characteristics and fills a gap in the existing method; (4) finally, the paper discusses mapping and representation issues: specific maps are produced at two levels: simple geomorphological maps accompany the assessment of each geomorphosite and synthetic maps, covering the whole study area, are produced for the communication of results to stakeholders. For this, four types of representation (qualitative, univariate, bivariate, multivariate) are proposed. The method is illustrated by three examples of inventories carried out in Western Switzerland and Haute-Savoie (France).

Contribution for an Urban Geomorphoheritage Assessment Method: Proposal from Three Geomorphosites in Rome (Italy)

“…Studies on urban geoturism are very recent. An interesting geotouristic proposal concerns lausanne (Reynard et al 2015) and Reynard et al (2016) proposed the geohistorical approach for the geomorphoheritage, but not specifically for very large urban areas. Clivaz and Reynard (2017) applied the geohistorical approach for the detection of invisible geomorphosites in a highly impacted by anthropic activities area in Switzerland, whereas Reynard et al (2017) highlighted the need for an ad hoc method for assessing urban geomorphosites.…”

Landform values for rural sustainability: Recognition and assessment in a Spanish–Portuguese border region case study

“…Moreover, the method to select and assess the geomorphological sites in the (Kubalíková and Kirchner, 2016;Rypl et al, 2014) emphasised the creation of a geomorphological inventory; the assessment is addressed to preserve landforms and to promote sustainable uses in less-known and unprotected areas, considering scientific, educational, economic, conservation and added values. Due to the thematic and spatial overlap of the study area, the methodology used here follows the latest proposals applied in the North of Portugal (Pereira and Pereira, 2010;Vieira et al, 2014), taking into account the necessary approach to the regional scale (Reynard et al, 2016). The methodology has included a qualitative and quantitative assessment; the value scales and maximum scores for the different criteria were adjusted from the Portuguese method.…”

The Potential of Permanent Gullies in Europe as Geomorphosites

“…This assessment was based on the common indicators used in similar studies Reynard et al , 2016bVujičić et al 2011;Kubalikova 2013;Neches 2013;Kubalikova and Kirchner 2016;Warowna et al 2016). These indicators were divided into two groups: (i) main values (scientific and educational) and (ii) additional values (functional and touristic).…”