Land use change and disappearance of hedgerows in a Tuscan rural landscape: a discussion on policy tools to revert this trend

Agricultural modernization brought about a significant land use change, with the expansion both of crops that could be more easily mechanized and of woodland and natural areas. Meanwhile, to increase the cultivated area, the farmland fabric of patches and infrastructures underwent a process of progressive simplification that caused the disappearance of landscape elements with high ecological value, such as hedgerows and isolated trees. This paper first analyses the land cover of the territory of a hilly inland municipality in Tuscany (Italy) in the years 1954, 1978 and 2016 and then assesses the loss of hedgerows and isolated trees that occurred between 1954–2016 in a sub-area. This analysis was performed using photointerpretation based on Q-GIS. Secondly, the paper analyzes the drivers of these phenomena focusing on the main direct and indirect costs of reintroducing hedgerows. Finally, it discusses the role of available policy instruments and planning tools in reversing hedgerow-loss trends. Results show that current policies were scarcely effective both from a quantitative and qualitative point of view and that more complex and coordinated tools are needed. While the discussion is mainly based on the case-study analysis, based on the authors’ opinion it could be applied to many other areas.