After the 1st May 2004, when new countries
joined the European Union, the need was felt to link these
states through an infrastructure network of motorway and
railway links (high speed—HS/high capacity—HC) easily
able to transport all possible goods throughout Europe.
Within this framework, 14 different projects were developed
with the aim of linking important cities. One of these
links is the Corridor V connecting Lisbon (Portugal) to
Kiev (Ukraine) and assigning a strategic role to Italy with
respect to the integration process of these countries. In
detail, part of the Corridor V is expected to start from
Venice, reaching Trieste and from here on to Ljubljana
(Slovenia) before proceeding to Budapest and finally
reaching Kiev in Ukraine. The whole development (from
Portugal to Ukraine) is approximately 4,000 km long of
which, about 30 km (less than 1 % of the entire route), falls
within the Italian Classical Karst area, a highly karstified
zone, renowned worldwide as one of the best karst landscapes
on the planet. The present paper regards the GIS
statistical methodological approach used to identify the
degree of karstification of the Italian Classical Karst providing
the stakeholders all the necessary information while
planning possible railway HS/HC solutions.
