GIS and Historical Cartography in Coastal Zones: Integration of Different Sources to Analyse Landscape Transformation Processes

Michele De Silva

Dipartimento di Archeologia e Storia delle Arti, Università degli Studi di Siena (IT)

Landscape of today is the result of historical sedimentation process in which physical and human events interact each other dynamically. In several coastal zones this process may produce different effects such as the shaping of the landscape with changing in coastline, wetlands and settlement patterns. In order to comprehend this process it is important to take into consideration different sources of information regarding landscape settings of the past. In this sense we would like to focus on historical cartography and historical aerial photographs as fundamental documents in understanding the previous settings. In particular the integration of these historical sources with archaeological and documentary information allows us to better appreciate the landscape transformation. In this perspective a GIS research environment, due to spatial chronological and thematic overlay, seems to offer the most helpful tool for this kind of integrated analysis. The paper presents application of this methodology in the Grosseto coastal belt (Southern Tuscany).