Journals & Publications
Open access research, field experience and art on the world’s terraced landscapes, published in three journals and four world congresses.
Volume 4, Number 1 · October 2026 · 7 articles
A mobile stone workshop was set up for the first time at the vineyard festival in Obernhof on the Lahn, on 6 and 7 June 2026, as part of the Lost Vine Place Lahn project. Using type boxes and templates, children and adults built small retaining walls without…
Pupils from the UNESCO schools in Krems and Melk spend a morning at the historic Red Gate above Spitz, learning the basic moves of dry-stone masonry from the trainers of the Austrian dry-stone wall school. The excursion is organised by the Wachau World…
The Kinderwingert brings children of seven to twelve into the vineyard: each adopts a vine, keeps a journal of it and works through five sessions across the growing season, ending with the harvest and a diploma. The report covers the training course at the…
This account is not only about dry-stone walls. It's about the small-scale community of Averara (Italy) and the people who came together to rebuild centenary dry-stone walls, to maintain them, and to learn from one another while doing so. Through a five-year…
A living wall was built at the Maison Familiale Rurale de Ventavon, in the Durance valley, by the students themselves and over two seasons. Only micro-local materials were used: pebbles from the river, soil from the site and plants of the place. Chambers for…
Three diaries record drystone activities devised for children from three to sixteen, in Cyprus and in Sardinia. The first follows nursery children collaging a terraced olive grove and handling stones in their own yard. The second is a school project in which…
On the terraced Moselle at Lehmen, the Razejunge association keeps a vineyard with a herb garden, lavender terraces and, since 2025, a classroom in the open air. For seventeen years it has worked with the local primary school and for twelve with the daycare…
Volume 2, Number 1 · January 2026 · 5 articles
With the model project of land consolidation in Rhineland-Palatinate, which was launched in 2012, an integrated planning approach made a significant contribution to the preservation and design of a steep-slope relict growing area in the last two steep slope…
This article presents an appraisal of ideas generated by extant scientific studies and oral testimonies. The focus, nomenclature and local knowledge is a way to highlight the conceptual universe from the perspective of local people in the terms and categories…
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…
Terraced landscapes are living cultural and ecological systems shaped over centuries, integrating geology, climate, and local resources. Their preservation depends on active inhabitation, cultivation, and care. Architecture mediates between historical forms…
The construction of these extraordinary territorial structures, whose main purpose was the cultivation of the land and the production of food, involved both prodigious physical work and a remarkable task of design and construction exactly embedded in the…
Daniel Fernandez Galvan is an effervescent publisher of the Journal Rincones del Atlántico (Corners in the Atlantic Ocean). Since 2003 he has accomplished 10 volumes. We met him during the preparation phase of the 4th Congress of Terraced Landscapes on Canary…
Topics on the organisation and function of ITLA
Current issue: Vol 4, No 1, October 2026
Peer-reviewed papers on terraced landscapes
Current issue: Vol 2, No 1, January 2026
Art and community projects related to terraced landscapes
Current issue: Vol 3, No 2, June 2025
All journals are open access, free of charge for authors, and every article gets a DOI.
Submit to submit@itla.siPapers and conclusions of the world congresses on terraced landscapes, from Honghe 2010 to the Canary Islands 2019.
4th Congress
Canary Islands, SpainMarch 2019
3rd Congress
Padova, ItalyOctober 2016
2nd Congress
Cusco, PeruMay 2014
1st Congress
Honghe, ChinaNovember 2010Awareness of terraced landscapes is growing considerably at the global, European, national and local levels. The most important civil initiative on the protection, preservation, and promotion of terraced landscapes and related cultures worldwide is the International Terraced Landscapes Alliance (ITLA). ITLA was formed in Mengzi, Yunnan Province in the Red River (Honghe) Prefecture in China in November 2010 by enthusiasts and visionaries who met there for the First World Conference on Terraced Landscapes. Since 2010 ITLA members have organised further conferences in Peru, Italy and the Canary Islands.
ITLA members bring interdisciplinary expertise to the alliance's main objective of acting for the benefit of nature and the people who still live in terraced landscapes. The ITLA journals focus only on terraced landscapes and deal with these highly complex systems, run professionally and in accordance with international guidelines and publication ethics.
Open Access is based on the view that unimpeded access to published information is essential for a fast and efficient flow of information. All publications are freely and universally accessible online, authors retain copyright on their works and all publications are stored in a digital Open Access archive.
