Terraced landscapes in Switzerland – an exploratory survey of their occurrence and characteristics

Terraced landscapes are one of Switzerland’s characteristic cultural landscapes, but until now there has been no spatially explicit cartographic representation or characterisation of them. We have taken on this challenge. In this article, we primarily describe our methodological approach and the challenges it presents. Secondly, we illustrate the approach and analyses using maps of the areas, types, use and condition of Switzerland’s terraced landscapes. We show that a combination of an inventory based on literature, the modelling of potential terraced areas, and a visual mapping based on map data has the potential to capture terraced landscapes as comprehensively as possible. However, some uncertainties remain, partly due to limited resources and computing power, but also due to the pending and very labour-intensive verification in the field.