Agricultural University of Athens, Department of Natural Resources Development and Agricultural Engineering (NRDAE)

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AUA

Institute profile:

AUA is the third oldest University in Greece and the first devoted to Agriculture. The Department of NRDAE (one of the 7 departments of the AUA) has three sectors. The participating Sectors of: Water Resources Management and of Soils and Agricultural Chemistry have an over 50 years experience in successful international research including: water resources management, soil physics, surface and groundwater hydrology, water treatment and reuse, erosion, desertification, flood and drought management, natural resources management, policy analysis, field investigations of soil erosion parameters and impacts on land productivity, land evaluation and sustainable development, etc. Project team members have participated in the compilation of the «Greek National Action Plan for Combating Desertification» and in several major projects such as CORINE, WASTES, MEDALUS I, II, III, PESERA, DESERTLINKS, ARID, WSM, etc. AUA is coordinator of Research Theme 2 of the DESIRE project.

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www.aua.gr

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Agricultural University of Athens
Iera Odos 75, 11855 Athens, Greece
Fax. +30210-5294081

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ΓΕΩΠΟΝΙΚΟ ΠΑΝΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΙΟ ΑΘΗΝΩΝ

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The island of Crete, covering an area of 8.261 square kilometers, is located in the southern part of Greece, in the Mediterranean sea. The eastern and central part of the island is already badly degraded and desertified, while the rest is highly sensitive to desertification. Soil erosion due to surface water runoff and tillage operations, collapse of terraces, overgrazing, and salinisation of lowland due to poorly drained soils, and overexploitation of ground water are the major processes of land degradation in the area.

The historical evolution of land uses in Crete has shown a dramatic increase in agricultural land in previous centuries by replacing forested land. Many of the areas that once supported natural vegetation and forests were cleared in order to sustain agriculture, but since measures of soil conservation were insufficient, these areas were severely eroded and degraded. Overgrazing and fires further destroyed the natural vegetation cover and prevented its regeneration. Now these areas are mainly unproductive, sparsely populated and desertified. The land has highly degraded mainly due to soil erosion and, under dry climatic conditions, vegetation growth and crop production has largely declined in those areas. Cultivation of highly degraded land is not economically feasible leading to land abandonment with adverse consequences.

Tending livestock is one of the main agricultural activities in the hilly and mountainous areas of the island. That type of land management is considered as the most important process of land degradation and desertification of hilly and mountainous areas. The process of land degradation is greatly accelerated by high animal densities that lead to vegetation degradation and soil compaction. Shepherds often damage natural vegetation by deliberately setting fires to eradicate vegetation and encourage the growth of new grass, which the animals then overgraze.

Water availability has become a major issue on the island due to increasing demands for irrigated agriculture and human consumption. The number of tourists visiting the island has significantly increased in the last two decades, raising the problem of better management of water resources. Flooding is another major issue for the flatter plain areas of the island. Steep slopes with shallow soils overlying consolidated bedrocks and poor vegetation cover favor high surface water runoff causing extensive flooding in the lowland.

The DESIRE project will identify all the processes and factors affecting land degradation in the island and sustainable measures will be defined for combating desertification in areas vulnerable to desertification such in olive groves, vineyards, pastures and intensively cultivated lowlands.

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Stakeholder groups
The groups of stakeholders and actors that are involved with or are directly influenced by the decision-making process are:

• The Ministry of Rural Development and Foods,
• The Ministry of Planning, Public Works and Environment
• The Ministry of Internal Affairs
• The four Prefectures of Chania, Rethymo, Heraklion, and Lasithi
• The General Administration of Crete (Periphery)
• The OADYK – Organization for the Development of Western Crete
• The OANAK- Organization of Water Resources Management of Eastern Crete
• The Union of Agricultural Associations
• The ISPOT - Institute of Olive Tress and Subtropical Plants of Chania (NAGREF)
• The Institute of Vines, Vegetables and Flowers  of Heraklion (NAGREF).
• National Agricultural Research Foundation –NAGREF ,
• The Institute of Plant Protection   of Heraklion (NAGREF)
• The Municipality of Agia Barbara

Sustainability Goals

The analysis of the sustainability goals for protecting natural resources from land degradation and desertification was conducted following two main approaches: (a) farm survey, and (b) stakeholder workshop. The purpose of the farm survey was to collect data on indicators (Research Theme 2) and to discuss with individual farmers possible sustainability goals for environmental protection. The farm survey included informal discussions with the farmers related to: (a) the physical condition of the farm and the problems faced in crop production and loss in land productivity, (b) the impacts of land degradation and desertification on the physical environment and on the social and economical characteristics of the area, and (c) the possible actions and goals for protection and restoration of natural resources. The farm survey was conducted in two dominant land use types: (a) agricultural crops (olives and vines) and (b) and pastures. Forests are also important land uses in the island but these areas are strictly controlled by public agencies.

These 7 sustainability goals were selected from 11 identified goals of sustainability for the study site of Crete. Considering the most important processes of degradation and existing actions or trends for sustainable use of natural resources more widely accepted by the local society, these 7 sustainability goals for land protection from desertification have been identified and proposed.

Goal 1	Policy enforcement of existing regulations on protection of natural resources
Goal 2	Awareness and technology dissemination
Goal 3	Sustainable management of grazing land
Goal 4	Preservation of olive plantations
Goal 5	Water conservation and increasing water availability
Goal 6	Promotion of organic farming
Goal 7	Delineation and protection of productive agricultural soils

 

To help understand this complex picture it can be helpful to think in terms the dominant socio-economic and environmental forces that are driving the process of land degradation. These place pressures on the land which have particular impacts. Human society may have already made responses to those impacts, or may have knowledge about how they could respond. Decisions about which responses to make may also be governed by a range of international, national or local policy regulations and agreements.

In the Crete study site, the same stakeholder workshop and questionnaires that were used to identify existing and potential response strategies (»Identifying strategies: Stakeholder workshop 1) also discussed and identified these driving forces; pressures; impacts; and the policy and regulation environment. This information was then used to inform the choice of »Field experiments and the scenarios used in »Simulated biophysical impact of remediation strategies and their financial viability.

Select map type

Land use: type Land use: intensity trend Degradation: extent Degradation: degree Degradation: rate Land conservation: groups Land conservation: measures Land conservation: effectiveness

Comments

The present vegetation of Crete is typical of the eastern Mediterranean and is adapted to the dry climatic conditions of this region. Olive and vine plantations are the main land use, at present covering a great part of the lowlands and hilly areas, but also parts of the uplands. Over the last 4 decades olive groves have greatly expanded, eliminating the maquis and shrubby vegetation. Today they cover more than 80% of area. Vine plantations greatly declined during 1960s due to the destruction by phylloxera. New plantations, more resistance to phylochera have appeared in the area since then. Greenhouses are mainly located in the lower part of the valley where climatic conditions are more favourable for growing vegetables.

Map version: 4Oct11

Typical landscape for the Crete study site covered by olives, vines and pastures in the upper zones.	New olive plantations subjected to high erosion rates.	Olive plantation under minimum tillage land management practice.

Introduction
The eastern and central part of the Greek island Crete is suffering from land degradation problems, while the rest of the island is highly sensitive to desertification. Soil erosion due to surface runoff and tillage operations, collapse of terraces, overgrazing, salinization of lowlands, and overexploitation of ground water are the major processes of land degradation in the area. A lot of forested areas were converted into cultivated land in the last century. Overgrazing and fires further destroyed the natural vegetation cover and prevented its regeneration.

Olive groves are an important form of land use in the area, but have various degrees of due to the different land management practices. Farmers perceive an herb cover as a competition for water for the Olive trees and keep the field clean and bare below the trees. A minimum tillage experiment with and without herbicides was carried out to see if it is possible to maintain a soil cover, restore the natural soil structure, promote infiltration and reduce runoff and helps in minimizing soil losses. Overgrazing on the shallow stony soil decreases cover and destroys soil structure, and therefore promotes runoff and erosion. A grazing control experiment was done in this area.

The Olive area is moderately sloping land (up to 17%) with relatively deep soil (55-65cm). The overgrazed area has very shallow soils with frequent outcrops.

Desertification indices
Both areas are separately parameterized with water erosion and tillage erosion for the Olive field and water erosion and overgrazing for the rangeland plot.

Olives and minimum tillage: the overall unmitigated risk is moderate for water and tillage erosion on sloping Olive fields without soil cover and erosion control measures, and tillage operation to keep the area between the trees bare. Minimum tillage decreases the water erosion slightly and tillage erosion more (to low risk). The main factor here is setting the tillage operations from ploughing to none. Setting minimum tillage or no-tillage has no effect.

Olives unmitigated	Olives with minimum tillage

Grazing lands seem to have a low risk for water erosion and low risk for overgrazing. Increasing the vegetation cover by fencing the rangeland will correctly decrease both to a no risk level, but the change is not very large.

Grazing unmitigated	Grazing with rangeland resting

Conclusions
For Crete he observed changes are in line with the experimental results and are therefore correctly indicated, but not as pronounced as measured (up to a 50% reduction in runoff and erosion was seen). Also the over grazing risk reduction is correctly identified and in line with the experiments.

The assessment tool exhibits strange behavior that the setting of minimum tillage or no tillage has no effect on water erosion, but setting tillage operations form ploughing to none has.

The workshop was facilitated by the Agricultural University of Athens and attended by 65 local stakeholders. The facilitators tried to build consensus among the stakeholders, asking them to express their ideas and opinions about the land degradation that occurs in the area; why they think it occurs and what they think should be done to remediate it. Using the Nominal Group Technique (in which a group discusses an issue, guided by a leader), a large number of areas of concern were raised.

Through a structured voting system, the stakeholders identified the following as the most important factors causing the degradation of their land.

(lack of) law and penalty enforcement soil pollution lack of briefing sustainability - organic crops infrastructure - creation of economic resources diseases caused by po.lution production costs

More details ... download the full report and see general results of all study sites
	WP3.1 Stakeholder Workshop 1: Crete (report) 384.72 kB
»Identifying strategies: Stakeholder Workshop 1 methodology and summary results from all study sites

Stakeholder Workshop 1 identified a number of existing or potential strategies to combat desertification and land degradation in the Crete study site. In the months following the workshop these strategies (technologies or approaches) were documented and evaluated in a structured and standardised way and their descriptions were entered in the WOCAT Technologies and Approaches databases in order to share the information with other DESIRE sites as well as globally.

For details of all Technologies and Approaches documented in the WOCAT Database (from the DESIRE study sites and from other sites worldwide), see

• WOCAT Technologies Database
• WOCAT Approaches Database

For those relating to this study site, click on the Name of technology or Name of approach to go directly to the descriptions in the database.

WOCAT Technologies Database

WOCAT Approaches Database

Authors: K. Kosmas, Or. Kairis

The workshop methodology was designed and coordinated through Research Theme 3: Potential prevention & mitigation strategies and consisted of three main elements:

• A participatory approach to guide and lead the workshop participants through a process of multi-criteria evaluation of different options which finally results in decision-making on strategies to be field-tested.
• The WOCAT database containing locally applied options as well as options from a number of other contexts.
• 'Facilitator', a Multi Objective Decision Support System (MODSS) software to support the single steps of the evaluation and decision-making process.

Target groups were the same as in the 1st workshop: local stakeholders (land users, representatives of local authorities, local NGOs) and external stakeholders (researchers, development professionals, NGOs, GOs).

As a result of the workshop, the following measures were selected for testing in field experiments.

More details ... download the full report and see an overview of all study sites
	WP3.3 Stakeholder Workshop 2: Crete (report) 2.03MB
»Selecting strategies: Stakeholder Workshop 2 methodology and summary results from all study sites