Dear Colleagues,

The abandonment of inhabited places concerns many countries worldwide bringing about the birth of the so-called “ghost towns”.

The causes that lead to the abandonment of a site can be both natural (e.g. earthquakes, landslides, and floods) and human (economic fluctuations, demographic aspects, population transfer towards urban areas, marginality and place isolation due to the lack of infrastructure, and technological or industrial disasters). Once the site is abandoned, the built-up area experiences a progressive physical decay so posing problems about the policies to be adopted to manage and maintain the buildings (or their ruins). Therefore, the sustainable management of abandoned villages is essential in decreasing degradation processes thus ensuring their conservation over time.

To address the problems related to sustainable management of abandoned villages, it is necessary to undertake multidisciplinary investigations taking into due account the geological, cultural, economic, management and conservation aspects.

In this frame, ghost towns can be considered a resource and not a problem for those in charge of the management, conservation and protection of these special sites.

This Special Issue aims to stress the importance of considering ghost towns as a potential resource for the development of marginal territories and inland areas. This implies the development of methods and tools for an integrated analysis of the causes of abandonment, both natural and human. Therefore, we invite you to submit articles contributing to improving the methodological approach to the study of ghost towns. Papers dealing with case studies and examples of economic, social and cultural management of abandoned towns will be appreciated. In addition, studies addressing the geological heritage in old urban areas are welcome. They could be help to inform the optimal conservation and regeneration of ghost towns.

The concept of resilience is often used when talking about development strategies of urban and territorial systems. We often refer to resilience in the context of actions for adaptation to climate change and reduction of environmental risks. Together with the aspects already mentioned, this Special Issue also expects to collect contributions on human resilience defined as the ability to adapt to natural and anthropogenic adversities.

This Issue aims to update the state-of-the-art relating to the topics above, and at the same time to help policymakers and stakeholders to supply indications on how to reduce soil degradation and manage ghost towns in a sustainable way.

In this Special Issue, we invite papers focusing on, but not limited to, the following topics:

1. Knowledge, protection, conservation, valorization and touristic fruition of ghost towns;
2. Use of remote sensing techniques for the knowledge and conservation of ghost towns;
3. Cultural function of ghost towns;
4. Use of new ICT technologies for the management, valorization, and fruition of ghost towns;
5. Geoheritage in abandoned areas;
6. Cultural heritage in ghost towns;
7. Geo-engineering problems in abandoned areas;
8. Geomatics and GIS for ghost town inventory;
9. Social and economic problems connected with the abandonment;
10. Regeneration;

Prof. Dr. Mario Bentivenga
Dr. Fabrizio Terenzio Gizzi
Dr. Nicola Masini
Prof. Dr. Margarida Antunes
Prof. Dr. Ylber Muceku
Prof. Dr. Salvatore Ivo Giano
Guest Editors

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• ghost town
• sustainable management
• geological and cultural heritage
• conservation and valorization
• regeneration
• resilience