Roots against landslides. The debate on forests and hydrogeological instability in Italian historiography between the 20th and 21st centuries

From the pioneering studies of Emilio Sereni to modern GIS surveys, the relation-ship between forests and hydrogeological instability continues to provoke heated de-bate. This essay attempts to reconstruct the main directions of this debate, integrating the considerations of Italian historians and geographers with insights from geological, hydraulic, and forestry sciences. Through a diachronic approach, a bibliographic re-view has been compiled that addresses significant issues for reflection: the effective-ness of agro-sylvo-pastoral systems in containing landslides and floods, the impact of the “forest regime” in the depletion of the forest heritage between the 18th and 19th centuries, and the historical debate between “conservationists” and “productivists.” First, the most significant contributions that historical-geographical research produced on the topic between the 1960s and 1980s are analysed. Second, the reflections of a new generation of scholars who confronted the ecological approach of Environmental History are exposed. Finally, some of the most innovative research that has combined sources and methods of “traditional” historiography with the advent of digital tech-nologies, starting with GIS, is examined. The essay demonstrates how the forest-deset-tlement issue still remains a source of debate, pitting those who look positively on land governance for landslide and flood mitigation against those who argue instead for the concept of forest renaturalization.

Keywords: Forest, Woodland, Hydrogeological Instability, History, Geography, GIS.

Federico Gestri, Radici contro frane. Il dibattito su bosco e dissesto idrogeologico nella storiografia italiana tra XX e XXI secolo in "STORIA URBANA " 179/2024, pp 115-136, DOI: 10.3280/SU2024-179005