Dal catasto al bosco: uso del suolo, proprietà e driving forces in una comunità alpina tra XIX e XXI secolo

Geographical research has long recognized the importance of a diachronic approach to identifying the dynamics of rural landscape transformations and contributing to current management. In response to the international scientific community’s call to investigate the historical driving forces behind changes in the Alpine landscape, this study delves into the relationship between wooded landscape transformation, forms of private and collective ownership, and rural practices, examining a local case study through historical cadastral sources. The applied methodology follows established strategies for analyzing cartographic sources to develop an investigative model for the Trentino area. It utilizes the cartographic and textual documentation of the Habsburg Land Registry (1853-1862) to quantitatively reconstruct and analyze 19th-century land use and land tenure systems. Using the method of cartographic filtering, the historical level was compared with current land use maps to identify change dynamics and their relationships with land ownership forms. The international debate has encouraged local-scale research to expand the understanding of Alpine environments and refine interpretative hypotheses regarding the driving forces of landscape transformations, seen as expressions of changes in socio-ecological structures. This contribution aims to add to the general interpretative framework, also suggesting the study of the forms and distribution of ownership, with particular attention to collective management forms, as a determinant of landscape dynamics.