The multidimensional benefits of terraced landscape regeneration: an economic perspective and beyond

Terraced landscapes represent a particular type of multi-functional, historic-cultural agrarian landscapes, today at risk of abandonment due to socio-economic changes. These landscapes are an ancient example of a "circular" model in using resources, able to be productive in multiple dimensions, provid-ing many ecosystem services to local communities and thus contributing to human wellbeing. Terraced landscapes have a complex value for society: so-cio-cultural, environmental and economic values, which can become a driver of territorial regeneration, if a systemic economic-territorial perspective is adopt-ed. This paper proposes the circular economy as a viable model of sustainable territorial development that can support terraced landscapes regeneration, ex-ploiting their structural multi-functionality and thus enhancing the multidi-mensional territorial productivity. The ecosystem services assessment frame-work, which includes economic, spatial, quantitative and qualitative evaluation tools, can be integrated in agri-environmental policies to make operational the "circular" paradigm of regeneration. A selection of economic tools and case studies is presented to show how circular processes can be activated in terraced landscapes, reducing costs and waste of resources, increasing multidimensional productivity, and finally at-tracting more investments towards a new systemic urban-rural "circular" de-velopment model.