Chapter 20 Planning, Policies and Governance for Terraced Landscape: A General View Enrico Fontanari and Domenico Patassini Abstract Guidelines for planning, policies and governance are suggested by class of terraced landscapes taking into consideration the main features of geographic domains and environmental contexts. Dealing with irreversibility, reversibility and development processes the guidelines can help the communities to adopt integrated strategies based on an effective institutional design. Input and basic information are provided in the 3rd International Congress on Terraced Landscapes (Italy, 6th–15th October 2016) by the working groups “Rules and policies” held in Trento/Rovereto and “Agronomic and Social Innovation” held in Valstagna, Canale di Brenta (Vicenza). 20.1 Three Landscapes The terraced landscape (TL) is a heritage of humanity, which needs no awards. It has been around for thousands of years to witness how humans, aware of geo- graphical and climatic conditions, have built basic infrastructure to develop agri- culture and the foundations of their settlements. In considering their life cycle, aside from the constructive, production and management features, recurring censuses or national surveys clearly point to three classes of TL. The first class involving irreversible degradation (TL1), the second with evidence of reversibility (TL2), while the third showing different types of development (TL3). Irreversible degradation affects a relative small portion of the terraced land where maintenance conditions are very bad, and reconstruction is either unlikely or impossible. Here, the degraded infrastructure is usually accompanied by a E. Fontanari (&) Á D. Patassini IUAV University Venice, Venice, Italy e-mail: enrico.fontanari@iuav.it D. Patassini e-mail: domenico.patassini@iuav.it © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 M. Varotto et al. (eds.), World Terraced Landscapes: History, Environment, Quality of Life, Environmental History 9, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96815-5_20 323