DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15863656
title: HiLSS Project

description: This repository is periodically updated.

Historic Landscape and Soil Sustainability (MSCA-IF-2019 - Individual Fellowships)

The HiLSS Project aims to investigate the relationships between sustainability and landscape heritage with particular reference to soil loss and degradation over the long term. The project will take a multidisciplinary approach that combines archaeology, Historical Landscape Characterisation (HLC), geosciences, and computer-based geospatial analysis (GIS - Geographical Information Systems) and modelling (RUSLE - Revisited Universal Soil Loss Equation). The research objectives of the HiLSS project are to quantify the impact of human activities during the Late Holocene in order to create spatial models which can inform the development of sustainable conservation strategies for rural landscape heritage.This project will focus on two mountainous regions that present historical and cultural similarities but located in different climatic zones of Europe (1- Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, Italy; 2- Northern-mid Galicia, Spain). In previous HLC studies, land-use has been evaluated from the perspective of cultural heritage, whereas RUSLE have used it as a proxy for the land-cover of an area and its effect on soil erosion. The HiLSS project will propose an innovative methodology that combines both the historic/cultural values and the environmental values of land-use to inform development of a model for the sustainable conservation. By considering the different agricultural land-use HLC types in GIS-RUSLE modelling, it will be possible to quantify the effect on soil loss for each HLC type and consequently to devise more environmentally sustainable management for each type.Environmental sustainability and historic landscape conservation are typically treated as two separate fields, but the HiLSS project will develop a transformative model for interdisciplinary research, proposing a new way to embrace both cultural and natural values as components of the same landscape management plans.



HLC_RUSLE.zip


The R script code was developed by dr. F. Brandolini (Newcastle University, UK) to accompany the paper: "Brandolini, F., Kinnaird, T.C., Srivastava, A., Turner S. - Modelling the impact of historic landscape change on soil erosion and degradation. Sci Rep 13, 4949 (2023)".

List of files included in HLC_RUSLE.zip:



R_script_code named "HLC_RUSLE" in .rmd format

Output folder: 



Figures folder: .png products of the R script code

Rasters folder: .png products of the R script code

Tables folder: .pdf products of the R script code



GeoTiff folder (.TIFF file format): Regional RUSLE Data

GPKG: HLC dataset and Region Of Interest file in .gpkg format




Spatial statistics to reveal patterns and connections in the historic landscape


The R script code was developed by dr. F. Brandolini (Newcastle University, UK) to accompany the paper: " F. Brandolini & S. Turner (2022) Revealing patterns and connections in the historic landscape of the northern Apennines (Vetto, Italy), Journal of Maps, DOI: 10.1080/17445647.2022.2088305. ".

It is available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5907229



Supplementary material_Land _SI_Historic Landscape Evolution.zip


Supplementary Materials to accompaing the paper: The evolution of historic agroforestry landscape in the Northern Apennines (Italy) and its consequences for slope geomorphic processes, submitted to Land, Special Issue Historic Landscape Transformation.



Project_Publications.zip


List of .pdf file included in the folder: 

1) Brandolini F, Domingo-Ribas G, Zerboni A and Turner S. A Google Earth Engine-enabled Python approach for the identification of anthropogenic palaeo-landscape features [version 2; peer review: 2 approved, 1 approved with reservations]. Open Res Europe 2021, 1:22 (https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.13135.2)

2) Brandolini F., Turner S.  2022 - Revealing patterns and connections in the historic landscape of the northern Apennines (Vetto, Italy),  Journal of Maps,  (https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2022.2088305)

3) Brandolini, F., Kinnaird, T.C., Srivastava, A., Turner S. 2023 - Modelling the impact of historic landscape change on soil erosion and degradation. Sci Rep 13, 4949 (2023), (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31334-z)

4) Brandolini, F., Compostella, C., Pelfini, M., and Turner, S. 2023 - "The Evolution of Historic Agroforestry Landscape in the Northern Apennines (Italy) and Its Consequences for Slope Geomorphic Processes" Land 12, no. 5: 1054. (https://doi.org/10.3390/land12051054)

5) Sánchez-Pardo, José Carlos, et al. "Dating and Characterising the Transformation of a Monastic Landscape: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Agrarian Spaces of Samos Abbey (NW Spain)." Environmental Archaeology, published online March 11, 2024. (https://doi.org/10.1080/14614103.2024.2319954)

6) Kinnaird, Tim C., et al. - "Unearthing the Histories of Agrarian Landscapes: A Research Framework for Terraces as Sustainable Environments." Geoarchaeology 40, no. 2 (2025): e70004. (https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.70004)

7) Brandolini, F. et al.  - "Geoarchaeology reveals development of terrace farming in the Northern Apennines during the Medieval Climate Anomaly". Sci Rep 15, 24989 (2025). (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-08396-2)