The main purposes and goals of this project, which was coordinated by the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Architecture, included integral management of cultivated terrace landscapes, exchange of best practices in environmental protection and terraced landscape promotion, providing support to common strategies for managing cultivated terrace areas, developing new methodologies, techniques, and planning instruments for protecting cultural landscapes, enhancing local and regional identity, and raising public awareness about the role and importance of typical cultivated terrace landscapes.
In Slovenia, the Gorizia Hills were selected as a sample region. Researchers at the Anton Melik Geographical Institute studied the landslide proneness of the selected test region and land-use changes in the settlements and cadastral districts of the municipalities of Medana and Kožbana in the last two hundred years. Based on the studies performed, the monograph Terasirana pokrajina Goriških Brd (The Terraced Landscape of the Gorizia Hills) was prepared. The monograph addresses this wine- and fruit-growing terraced region in westernmost Slovenia from various viewpoints. In addition, a series of articles were published.
In mid-February 2008, we took part in the international conference “Living Terraced Landscapes – Perspectives and Strategies to Revitalize the Abandoned Regions,” which was held in Ljubljana to conclude this project of several years’ duration.

Overview of terraces in Slovenia. (figure in high resolution)

Terraced landscape around Medana.

Slope south of Medana before planned terraces.

The same slope after development of terraces. This work was part of ALPTER project.