An interesting study on hazard assessment on terraced areas has been developed by the University of Genoa (Dept. POLIS), in co-operation with Regione Liguria.

The approach is interesting for its coherence and its feasibility: data on terraced areas are statistically elaborated and then multivariate analysis is used to define their relationship with critical hazard, eventually obtaining a method that can be extended elsewhere.

From the abstract:

"Terraces may be regarded as a human interference with the geomorphic system, which drives the evolution of the terrestrial surface. This interference actually causes the increase of the hazard particularly in those areas where the morphology hardly constrains the urbanisation.

The preliminary results here presented are part of the hazard assessment task of the EU Interreg III Alpter project, which was born to contrast the abandonment of
terraced agricultural areas in the alpine region. After checking the real extension of terraces and collecting data, will be performed a MS (multivariate statistic) analysisto get to a decision tree model of the hazard connected with terraces. The preliminary results make focus attention mainly on aspect and gradient slope more than on other features."