The Space of Food. The Agricolture of Large Motorway Infrastructures: The Case of the Brenner Motorway

Nowadays, the linear network of transport infrastructures (roads and railways) plays an important role for national economic development, but it is also one of the sectors that stress the socio-ecological systems of peri-urban and rural areas. Within this process, the traditional approach does not consider the impacts and consequences on productive agroecosystems, although territories surrounding the infrastructures represent important food spaces. In line with the priorities of the European Green Deal and the EU strategy on biodiversity for 2030, the following work represents the beginning of research funded by the Italian ministry (PRIN), which approaches the topic of large infrastructural line systems in relationship with natural capital and related ecosystem services. The main objective of this work is to introduce a reflection on the relationship between infrastructure and food spaces starting from the case study of the Brenner motorway, whose landscape insertion was created by the architect Porcinai. Even without expectations of exhaustiveness, the work presents itself as a first approach to the topic, inserting into the complex line of research concerning the relationship between ecosystems and society.