ABSTRACT
The agricultural landscape tradition of Mediterranean littoral regions plays a fundamental role in defining a level of extensive landscape quality for their sustainable territorial development. Place knowledge is the basis of any process of landscape assessment and must be based on a “knowledge project” comprising the characterisation of past and present physical and cultural features, reading the dynamics and systems that generate the landscape as well as the social and cultural perception over time. The climate and geological conditions of the area of L’Alfas del Pi historically determined a rural landscape based on pluvial dryland farming and territorially localised irrigated orchards. A more in-depth study of the landscape’s historical characteristics requires a systematic analysis of its macro-structures plot subdivision and terracing systems at subsequent time steps. The interdisciplinary approach may be combined with participatory elements as a basis for defining landscape quality goals, helping point to common themes that are found in Mediterranean peri-urban landscapes.
