Climate Change Drought Mitigation and Desertification Prevention in the Mediterranean Environment

Abstract

In the European Mediterranean environment the risk of land degradation anddesertification is already felt under the present climatic regime and human activities. As a matterof fact, until the early seventies this risk was considered of minor importance for most of thecountries of the region. It was pointed out that the traditional agricultural systems were wellcapable of keeping those processes in check.<br><br>In the eighties and early nineties the impact of agricultural systems introduced in the cultivatedsloping areas of the region in the previous decades was presented as a serious factor causing land degradation. In addition, a new threat had appeared, in the shape of global warminggenerated by enhanced greenhouse effect. Climatic variation and drought are intrinsiccharacteristics of arid and semiarid environments, and the Mediterranean Basin is no exception.<br><br>By examining present pattern and possible future trends of climate over the region, it has beenpossible to investigate the relationship between the global warming and the droughtphenomenon and assess the changing risk of the land degradation and desertificationprocesses. To this end, the UK Hadley Centres Global Climate Model was run on monthly basisfor the Mediterranean countries to predict the percent change in rainfall and temperatures withrespect to monthly values for the time horizon 2050. The model comprises several layers intothe atmosphere and below both the soil and sea surfaces and accounts for most of theessential/dominant hydrological processes. The model runs at spatial scale of 2.5 x 3.75 gridsquares for rainfall precipitations and 0.5 x 0.5 grid squares for temperature and accounts onlyfor CO2 impact. Results show that for the dry season (April to September), by the year 2050rainfall is likely to decrease over much of the Mediterranean countries, particularly in thesouthern parts, where it could decrease by up to 25%. This trend in rainfall is accompanied bytemperature rise between 1.5 to 2.75 C in the northern part and between 1.75 and 3.0C inthe southern part of the Mediterranean.<br><br>The above-outlined changing climate patterns are expected to lead to environmental conditionseven more conducive to land degradation and desertification over the region.<br><br>To combat these problems, the European Community (EC), in collaboration with otherinternational organizations, funded different programs and projects for mitigating droughts andassessing and preventing land degradation and desertification.<br><br>With reference to afore-stated issues, the paper describes the main features and characteristicsof some of these programs and projects ESD (European Soil Database), CORINE (COoRdinationINformation Environment), MEDALUS (MEditerranean Desertification And LandUSe), UNEP (United Nation Environmental Program), EFEDA (European Field Experiment inDesertification threatened Areas) and proposes new approaches for environmental policies inorder to:<br><br><ul><li>assess, forecast and mitigate adverse impacts of droughts;</li><li>better understand soil erosion, land degradation and desertification processes;</li><li>identify preventive, protective and curative measures;</li><li>address quantity and quality of natural resources in an integrated context;</li><li>support innovation and participatory strategies.</li></ul>The importance and role of institutional strengthening, sound financial and managerialframeworks, availability of human resources involved, research thrust, technology transfer andnetworking improvement are also highlighted.