How to integrate cultural and geological heritage? The case of the Comuniterrae project (Sesia Val Grande UNESCO Global Geopark, northern Italy)

Abstract

Geoheritage is recognized as a component of the cultural heritage, especially in areas like UNESCO Global Geoparks. In the Sesia Val Grande UNESCO Global Geopark (northern Italy), the “Comuniterrae project” is a participated project focusing on the elaboration of Community Maps of the Middle Lands and including 10 municipalities located in a “mid” territory between the valley bottom and the highlands. Local communities have inventoried 270 elements, both immaterial and material, as components of their cultural heritage. These sites show a strong link with the geological and geomorphological background. We aimed at enlightening this link by selecting the most iconic geo-cultural sites. An original procedure of classification based on 3 main criteria was set on 70 selected sites: i) the kind of geofeatures; ii) the spatial relation between geofeatures and cultural sites, and the reciprocal conditioning; iii) the relation between humans and geofeatures. The results highlight that heritage stones and natural landforms, especially if conditioning the cultural site location, are the most recurrent categories. The use of geofeatures by humans is the most common kind of relation. These results invite to organize meetings with local populations to discuss these outcomes, and to enrich the touristic offer with multidisciplinary approaches.