ABSTRACT
Part of the larger Casentino Basin, the Solano is one of a series of inter-montane basins in the Tuscan Apennines of central Italy. The area of c. 10,700 ha is approximately located between 43° 40’ 00” and 43° 47’ 00” N and 11° 34’ 10” and 11° 44’ 10” E. It is confined by the water divisions of the hydrological basin of the ‘Torrente’ Solano, a tributary of the upper course of the Arno River. To the west the Pratomagno mountain range forms the interfluve with the Valdarno. Like many other cultivated landscapes of the Italian Apennines, the Solano Basin consists of an open basin with a clear altitudinal zonation. These zones range from Mediterranean to warm and cold sub-Mediterranean, up to mountain climate conditions. The strict Mediterranean climate zone is hardly met here. The warm and cold sub-Mediterranean zones coincide with the farming systems of the coltura promiscua or coltura mista (under c. 700 m), mostly on terracettes, and the grazed chestnut forest (Castanea sativa) (up to c. 1000 m), respectively. Both have been transformed or abandoned in recent decades. In the mountain zone beech (Fagus sylvatica) charcoal coppice (above c. 1000 m) and alpine pastures on high divides predominate. The former is changing towards high forest, while the latter are most often abandoned and subject to secondary succession. Formerly the sub-systems of this traditional landscape were functionally connected and the total arrangement was highly self-reliant (Fig. 8.1). Nowadays it is in part fragmented by intensification and segregation of functions on the one hand, and abandonment or extensification on the other. Location of the Solano Basin and subdivision into major landscape units. (Prepared with the help of Valentina Robiglio.) https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203220894/7aa6ff7a-81da-4c32-a1b2-667754d2d7f1/content/fig8_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
