Forest transition and changes in the socio-economic structure of a developed country: a long-term analysis

The present study analyses historical trends (1861-2011) in the socio-economic structure in Italy using 12 statistical indicators and their latent relationships with the long-term forest expansion with the aim to assess how changes in the socio-economic context have influenced Forest Transition (FT) at the country scale. Indicators include 3 population and human settlement variables, 3 demographic variables describing population structure, 3 socio-economic variables describing changes in the economic structure and the productive base and 3 environmental variables illustrating changes in forest land cover and protected areas. By developing an exploratory data analysis framework, the study identifies in the time window encompassing 1936-1951 the most probable turning point in the forest-socioeconomic system in Italy indicating also two groups of indicators according to the diverging (linear vs non linear) time trends. The paper also provides an empirical understanding of political, economic, and social forces driving FT at the national level.