Assessment of Desertification in Semi-Arid Mediterranean Environments: The Case Study of Apulia Region (Southern Italy)

Abstract

This work focuses on the assessment of the areas threatened by desertification in the semi-arid Mediterranean environments. The presented approach represents a modification of the ESAs model (Environmental Sensitive Areas to Desertification; Kosmas et al., 1999) through a set of new indicators established to account for the regional-specific environmental characteristics as well as identifiable parameters relevant for land use planning and control measures. These supplementary indicators, comprehending socio-economic and environmental factors, were integrated in the ESAs model and, by using a GIS, were applied to Apulia region (Southern Italy), a typical representative of many Mediterranean areas affected by land degradation. The analyses include the elaboration of a whole set of indices on both regional and the administrative scales that constitute the principal territorial units for the management of natural resources. The results have demonstrated that the introduction of the new indices has improved substantially the overall evaluation of the desertification risk in the Apulia region. The proposed approach permits not only the identification and refinement of different degrees of vulnerability of an area to land degradation, but allows also the analyses of specific factors affecting desertification as well as their evaluation in terms of spatial and temporal distribution. Furthermore, the presented method is conceptually very simple and easy to implement from local to regional and national scale, and could be proposed as a standard methodology for the definition of priorities in implementation of strategies to mitigate desertification in the semi-arid Mediterranean environments.