Landslides in Cinque Terre

On Friday October 25th, 2011 extreme rainfall caused major flooding and landslides along the coast of Cinque Terre in the town of Vernazza. The landslides triggered hundreds of shallow landslides and a debris flood that caused three casualties and an economic loss of $130 million Euros. Terraces in Cinque Terre have been around since Roman times and were used for vineyards. Terraces are made by cutting into the hillside of the sea cliffs and clearing away the rocks then building multiple levels of stone walls that are comprised of loose rocks so water can pass through. Landslides have only been a recent issue due to terraces being abandoned by farmers beginning in the 1960’s. Terraces need constant maintenance of the loose rocks in stonewalls. The roots of the vine and other natural plants keep the sediment of the terraces in place and stop erosion. 

In order to stop the erosion of terraces and stop future landslides from happening in the Cinque Terre, the National Park can choose to do a combination of the following: restore some of the abandoned terraces, reforestation of plants, and implement local structures to stop landslides. Which every choice the National Parks department needs to decide how committed they are to preserving the cultural heritage of the terraces and also how badly they want to help the local wine industry. Reforestation is a long term solution and will take 30 years for the roots of the plants to be effective enough to slow the erosion process. Local structural work and restoring the abandand terraces are only short term solutions and very costly to maintain. During a hike along the trail of a terrace it was very apparent how much the terraces have eroded from lack of maintenance.

During our stay in Cinque Terre we visited a local vineyard and winery where we learned that many farmers have a hard time selling their wine in Cinque Terre. Since this wine is costly to produce (due to the necessary farming techniques), the price tends to be higher than wines from other regions. In order to make money, the farmers must develop markets for their wine outside of the local region. It was also brought up that the majority of local restaurants in Cinque Terre do not even carry wine that is produced from local vineyards, which means more and more terraces become abandoned due to local farmers not being able to sell their wine. This is unfortunate because the restaurant owners are only making the terraces weaker by not supporting local vineyards and the development of new vineyards on abandoned terraces. In order for the option of restoring terraces to be a viable solution, it is important for farmers to have an incentive to grow crops (either wine or something else). 

Pictures of the vineyard and the coastline from the hike. Both show terraces and the erosion.