Cambiamenti a lungo termine dell’uso del suolo nell’area di Malpensa e conseguenze sull’attuale presenza della brughiera.

The land use from the 18th century to the present was analyzed in the municipalities nearby Malpensa airport (Province of Varese, North-Western Lombardy). The aim of the study was to analyze the changes in the territory at present managed as natural park and as regional park, with particular reference to the shrublands and therefore to the habitat of heath. The results showed differences or correspondences in the changes of the land use between the two park areas due to the planning and land management policies implemented over the centuries. The current territorial arrangement is unambiguously unbalanced, both in the natural park, where forests are prevailing and in contrast there are few meadows and heaths, and in the regional park, where anthropized areas replaced crops. The typical heath community is no longer developing in newly expanded shrublands, whereas the current heathlands takes a negligible area that was remained untouched to centenarian transformations.