Abstract
Soil erosion control is critical to global food production and ecosystem health worldwide, and particularly in the Mediterranean region, which is prone to erosion and is expected to be strongly affected by climatic and anthropogenic changes. In this study, which was part of the MASCC/Arimnet2 project, we aimed to inspect the vulnerability in terms of soil erosion of Mediterranean agricultural soils to global changes in order to contribute to the definition of sustainable agricultural conservation strategies for Mediterranean agro-ecosystems. Specifically, we explored how land use and management (LUM) can mitigate climate change impacts and increase agricultural attractiveness in a pasture-dominated Mediterranean mountain environment, the Cannata basin in Sicily, by 2050 under RCP4.5 climate scenarios, and testing strategies to maintain agricultural production and protect soil resources.LUM scenarios were established as a modulation of environmental protection and agricultural production/ diversification. The main management distinctions tested in this paper included intensive versus extensive practices for pasture, and conventional versus conservative practices for cereals and orchards.Soil erosion simulations, carried out with the LandSoil model, showed that the impact of climate change was very low and not significant in the studied watershed (i.e., 1.78% of erosion on average). Under current climate and compared to the baseline, LUM scenarios reported an increase in erosion for the business-as-usual (S1, +6.0%), market-oriented (S2, +57.2%) and sustainability-oriented (S4, +0.9) scenarios, respectively, whereas the nature-oriented scenario led to a slight reduction in erosion (S3, 11.3%).Our results emphasize that agricultural diversification coupled with adaptations in practices and management can improve the attractiveness of agriculture in pasture-dominated environments while maintaining soil protection at an acceptable level.
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