Promoting Research and Landscape Experience in the Management of the Archaeological Networks. A Project-Valuation Experiment in Italy

Abstract

Archaeological sites are part of the history and identity of a community playing a strategic role on the different scales of the cultural and economic common life. Whereas on the one end the most famous archaeological sites attract huge flows of tourists and investment, on the other hand, many minor archaeological sites remain almost ignored and neglected. This study proposes a project-evaluation approach devoted to the “minor” archaeological site development, outlining a territorial, socio-economic, and landscape communication pattern aimed at creating an archaeological network integrating other cultural and natural resources. As such, these networks get able to match the demand of customers who shy away from iper-consumerist tourism and want to deepen their knowledge of a place. The proposed approach integrates knowledge, evaluation, and design in a multiscale pattern whose scope is to foster and extend the archaeological research program, involving public and private stake/stockholders to widen the cultural-contemplative experience and promote further educational events concerning the themes of the local identity. With reference to the archaeological basin of Tornambè, Italy, a Web-GIS knowledge system has been drawn to provide the territorial information requested by the economic-evaluation multiscale pattern implemented to verify the cost-effectiveness of the project. The expected negative results of the economic valuation supported the allocation pattern of the considerable investment costs, as well as the hypothetic scenarios about the evolution of the cultural-contemplative experience due to the extension of the archaeological estate. Some disciplinary remarks propose a heterodox approach for a further interpretation of the economic results and financial indexes, by introducing the monetary dimension of such a social capital asset.

Assessment of Landscape Co-Benefits in Natura 2000 Site Management Plans

“…(5) The average period at the rate r (AP r ) [140,141] is a sort of time elasticity that can be considered as the average period of deferment of the i th annual net discounted cash flows (CF i ) given the discount factor (Equation ( 7));…”

People and the City: Urban Fragility and the Real Estate-Scape in a Neighborhood of Catania, Italy

“…It is appropriate to remind that each sub-system comprises everyone and everything supporting that specific code, then people and things can belong to multiple sub-systems, even only in part, that is to the extent that they share those codes (those values), and undertake to implement the related program. Nowadays, the dominant social sub-systems are, for example, the economic, political, and judicial ones; the weaker are the cultural, educational and landscape sub-systems [13,14].…”

“…Accordingly, if resilience is the ability of the social system to cope with external risk, social capital is the strategic variable for analysis, valuation and decision making [31] that identify-basing on relevant and accessible data-fragility and resilience factors at the city level: Rapid and unregulated urbanization; income and social inequality; concentrated poverty; unemployment; policing and justice deficits; real and perceived insecurity; exposure to natural hazards, such as droughts, cyclones and floods [13,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. Symmetrically, resilience factors are assumed: Higher income and social equality; effective policing and judicial mechanisms; micro-economic security and social protection; the provision of basic services; social cohesion; social networks and social support; strong community to government and inter-governmental cooperation [41,42].…”

“…. , x ip and x j = x j1 , .., x jp is given by (13) For numerical data other examples of distance function are the Manhattan distance (also known as taxicab distance), maximum distance, and average distance.…”

Human Capital Approach in the Economic Assessment of Interventions for the Reduction of Seismic Vulnerability in Historic Centres

“…This contribution is the first step of a second part of a larger project aimed at forming a general model of analysis, evaluation, and planning of conservation interventions in the historic city and reduction of seismic vulnerability in the historic city [1][2][3][4][5][6].…”