Mapping the First World War Forgotten Material Heritage: A Multi-proxy and GIS-based Proposal for the Trentino Alps

The material remains of the First World War field-battles are gradually disappearing, especially in marginal mountain areas, due to negligence and changes in land coverage. The paper presents the first stage of an ongoing project, devoted to identifying the forgotten material features of war landscapes on the Trentino Alps, using a wide range of historical sources, such as cartography, aerial and ground photos, textual descriptions and field surveys. The case study chosen to test the methodology is a small area of the municipality of Trambileno, in the south of the Province of Trento. Different data from different sources are integrated in a GIS platform, in order to safeguard the memory and the location of cultural heritage, as well as to support future enhancement plans.