Protecting Ischia with Traditional Dry-Stone Walls and Local Knowledge

Ischia’s traditional stone walls, parracine, show how heritage and nature-based solutions can strengthen communities facing rising climate risks.

“Parracina” is a dialect term from the Campania and Naples region that literally means a “dry-stone wall”. The term likely originates from the Greek word parakeimai, meaning “stand next to”. Today, the word parracina is still used to describe the traditional dry-stone wall found across the volcanic island of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples. Built in mountainous areas without the use of mortar or binder, parracine rely on a traditional construction technique designed to contain mountain soil and support cultivation through the creation of terraces. They have been built in Ischia for centuries. The earliest known traces were uncovered in 1989 during the excavation of an archaic Greek farm at Punta Chiarito and date back to around 790/780 BCE. The island’s longstanding agricultural activity, especially vine-growing and olive/citrus cultivation, has made parracine an essential feature of Ischia’s landscapes, with its craftmanship and technique passed down through generations. In 2018, UNESCO officially recognised and recorded the traditional “art of dry-stone walling” as an element of intangible cultural heritage.

Disasters on the volcanic island

Other than their traditional value, the parracine revealed their true worth during two tragedies that struck the island just five years apart: The first came in August 2017, when a magnitude-3.9 earthquake struck the island’s municipality of Casamicciola Terme. It was a moderate tremor on paper, yet it still led to significant damage: several buildings and a church collapsed and two women died. Five years later, in November 2022, heavy rainfall triggered a huge landslide, that again struck the municipality of Casamicciola Terme. An estimated volume of 40,000 cubic meters of mud and debris tore down the slopes, uprooting trees, sweeping away cars, and crushing buildings. Twelve people lost their lives and many more were injured due to the mudslide on the island. For Ischia’s population, both incidents did not come as a surprise, yet the extent of damage and the fatalities shocked many on the touristic island.

“Ischia is above all a highly seismic area, so landslides often occur after earthquakes”, explains Dr. Adriana Pacifico from the research and technology hub STRESS (Sviluppo Tecnologie e Ricerca per l’Edilizia Sismicamente Sicura ed ecoSostenibile). “We had a major earthquake in 2017, very sudden and unexpected, in which, I believe, two people died, and many homes were damaged. Because a large portion of the housing stock is irregular or not legally registered, there were serious complications with insurance claims and reconstruction, which created a great deal of confusion. Then, in 2022, the island experienced an episode of extreme rainfall, leading to this disastrous landslide. Although the rainfall itself was exceptional, the situation was made worse because the channels and ravines that should have carried the water were already filled with debris from previous events. As a result, the rainwater could not flow where it was meant to, intensifying the landslide,” Pacifico says, connecting the two disasters.

Ischia has long relied on parracine to retain slopes and stabilise the terrain…they have almost certainly helped prevent the damage in 2022 from being even more severe.

Dr. Adriana Pacifico, STRESS (Sviluppo Tecnologie e Ricerca per l’Edilizia Sismicamente Sicura ed ecoSostenibile)

“At the same time,” she adds, “Ischia has long relied on parracine to retain slopes and stabilise the terrain. They are everywhere on Ischia, and they have almost certainly helped prevent the damage in 2022 from being even more severe.“

Landslide risk in a changing climate

Landslides are a global phenomenon that specifically occur in mountaneous regions, on volcanic islands, along coastlines, and in areas prone to earthquakes, deforestation or rapid urbanisation. They can be triggered by a wide range of factors including heavy rainfall, snowmelt, rapid temperature changes, earthquakes, volcanic activity, and human actions such as construction, deforestation, or resource extraction.

Although landslides have diverse triggers, it is widely recognised that climate change affects slope stability at multiple temporal and geographical scales and is likely to increase the occurrence of landslides. Climate change drives more extreme weather events such as intense rainfall and abrupt temperature fluctuations that can destabilise slopes and contribute to more frequent landslides.

Moreover, landslides can cause extensive damage to buildings, infrastructure, landscapes and ecosystems, and they pose a significant threat to human life. As climate change accelerates, the frequency and severity of landslides are expected to rise, making them an increasingly critical natural hazard to address.

From disaster response to risk reduction

Because landslide have many different triggers and complex causes, they are difficult to address. Many approaches have traditionally focused on responding to disasters after they occur, rather than preventing and managing the underlying risks. With the adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in 2015, this mindset began to shift, placing greater emphasis on reducing disaster risks through understanding hazards and addressing the underlying socio-economic and environmental drivers that create vulnerability in the first place.

In the context of landslides, this means deepening the understanding of how socio-environmental transformations interact with geodynamic processes, while also integrating scientific knowledge with traditional practices used to stabilise soil and prevent slope failure.

In many Asian countries, including Hong Kong, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, nature-based solutions (NbS) have increasingly been used to mitigate landslide risks. A 2020 policy brief by the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre looked at the role of nature-based and hybrid solutions for managing landslide risks in Sri Lanka. The study emphasises the importance of traditional practices that promote sustainable ecosystems, soil fertility, agricultural productivity, slope protection and the reduction of soil erosion. The study explores possible soil bioengineering techniques based on these traditional practices that enhance natural forest cover and forest plantations, demonstrating how these methods can be applied today, particular in areas prone to shallow, slow-moving landslides, to reduce risks and strengthen slope stability.

In many Asian countries, including Hong Kong, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, nature-based solutions (NbS) have increasingly been used to mitigate landslide risks.

In the Western Balkans, the IUCN-led ADAPT project addresses emerging environmental and societal challenges by placing NbS at the centre of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The project aims to strengthen knowledge and awareness of NbS for disaster risk reduction, while also implementing and scaling up these solutions across the region.

In the Albanian municipality of Elbasan, ADAPT proposes a combination of NbS interventions including forest landscape restoration, a grazing management plan at the Gurra catchment, and guidelines for restoring the Gurra stream. These measures aim to reduce hazards linked to soil degradation and erosion, particularly landslides and flooding. The project also underscores the importance of raising awareness among local communities and involving them directly in the design and implementation of NbS solutions.

Monitoring the slopes of Ischia

A similar approach is adopted by the EU-funded Med-IREN project, that seeks to utilise NbS to protect local communities from extreme climate events in the Mediterranean. One of the project demosites is Ischia led by Dr Adriana Pacifico who coordinates between the project and the Municipality of Casamicciolo. Together with her colleagues from STRESS and the engineering consultancy company RINA, they aim to build a monitoring network for NbS, with a focus on parracine, installing sensors on the walls’ stones or in the soil behind them to monitor the movement of the soil, as well as humidity and water content, Dr Pacifco explains.

“To be honest, when we talk about NbS here, many people simply don’t know what it actually means. And sometimes, there is this ‘not in my backyard attitude’, people say, ‘fine, try it, but not near my house. So one of our goals is to build trust in NbS approaches,” summarises Dr Pacifico the project’s attempts to include local communities in the project’s design. “The parracine are an ideal starting point, they are the original, traditional NbS on the island. By valuing and highlighting this heritage, and eventually enhancing it, we believe NbS will become more acceptable to the community, because people already trust the parracine.”

One of our goals is to build trust in NbS approaches…the parracine are an ideal starting point, they are the original, traditional NbS on the island.

Dr. Adriana Pacifico, STRESS (Sviluppo Tecnologie e Ricerca per l’Edilizia Sismicamente Sicura ed ecoSostenibile)

In a rapidly changing climate, natural hazards facing Ischia are likely to increase. They highlight the growing need for integrated, evidence-based approaches to slope stability and disaster risk reduction. The parracine, traditional dry-stone walls, are one example that demonstrate how vernacular engineering can work alongside modern monitoring techniques. Preserving and enhancing these systems is not merely a cultural choice, but a practical strategy for reducing landslide risk and strengthening community resilience for the future.