With respect to the region, human activity since the last glacial maximum is computed to have contributed to 50% in land use changes, particularly through the conversion of forest patches and mediterranean woodlands into productive agriculture settings. The forests started to cover through land abandonment and protection. In France and Italy, primary factors involve rural depopulation and improved crop yields, which reduced the need for agricultural expansion. The slope, soil productivity, distance from roads and distance from pre-existing forests all contribute to faster Mediterranean forest recovery. The biophysical features of the Mediterranean has strong and unique constraints, including water limitations during the long, hot and dry summer season. The subsurface is hard calcareous substrate with considerable rockiness which gave rise to the specific types of agriculture found in the region today (vineyards, olive trees, lavender). Early settlers also extensively farmed the landscape, resulting in deep terraced landscapes and extensive grazing on the surface.

The results were derived from the deployed GIS methodologies which is explained below. In application terms, it exhibits a trend which depicts an increase in land cover for both forests and built areas. The former grows over time, gaining land cover from other classifications, mainly from arable land and pastures. Built areas grow with increasing population, albeit the areas around the study sites were all only small villages, with most major population centers relegated away to the coast at Nice, Marseille, Montpellier and Monte-Carlo.

The forest area grew from 516 to 1046 between 1860 and 2010. Conversely, both the arable land and pastures see a decrease. Arable land sees a drop from 971 to 668 over the same 150 year period, and pastures sees a decrease from 372 to 105. These numbers pertain to land use “sites” that the researchers have done themselves, as opposed to being some form of area measurement. In 2010, 74% of the forest cover came from forests originally around in 1860, 12% came from arable land and another 13% came from pastures. Final GAM Models for major land use and land cover types shows a significant importance and influence of the biophysical factors slope and substrate type, with less importance attributed to elevation, sand and rivers. Similar methods for socioeconomic factors yields a conclusion that houses are the biggest influencing factor to forest recovery, with roads and town square centers having less importance.

The research is done with good precision and accuracy, with a reliable back catalogue of historical data as the area has been populated for many millennia, although the authors does not hesitate to warn of the potential limited precision in historical georeferencing and questionable mapping units used in historical data, therefore urging future researches of the area to exercise caution when trusting this data. Overall, Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur sees a slow but steady increase in forest cover since 1860s for certain, with the improved agricultural yields leading to the abandonment of constant spread of agriculture and pastures into originally forested land. This was then later aided by the region’s complex topography and (in some areas) fairly inaccessible terrain, effectively making it an insurance policy. Slope, topography, position, substrate type and distance from human settlements does indeed all play a role into this period of forest recovery.

Forest recovery has recently been a more self-sustained process than anything to do with human-induced policies. Indeed, the legitimacy in forest recovery as a measure away from population centers is a confirmation of this fact. Once agriculture modernized, farmers abandoned excess land as they are a hassle for maintenance, and these areas tends to be the most inaccessible areas first, such as those with bad topography. Modern Mediterranean human settlement patterns expands existing population centers, but not of setting up new spaces and invading into untouched territory. The remaining patches of forest in 1860 has since then been allowed to grow back, recovering to the latest 2010 data indicated in the research.