Study site description: Rendina, Italy

Table of Contents

1. Responsible IP partner
2. General information
3. Bio-physical description
4. Land use management and degradation processes
5. Socio-economic description
   1. Population density and structure
   2. Level of education
   3. Level and sources of income
   4. Impacts of land degradation on the livelihood of people
   5. Major challenges of existing land resource management
   6. Major drivers of main land degradation processes
6. Institutional and political setting
7. Relevant end-users / stakeholder groups (at all levels)
8. Past and on-going projects
9. References
10. Annex: Soil characteristics of the Rendina Basin

Impacts of land degradation on the livelihood of people

At present the land degradation process only partially affects the productivity and the incomes. The incomes of many farmers are also sustained by the CAP with direct payments to farmers, while intense mechanization can prevent permanent damage and loss of arable land caused by intense erosion processes and landslides. The landslide processes, diffuse and frequent in the central part of the study area (where soils formed on clay shale and Flysch formations prevail), are conflicting with periodic land levelling just before tillage and seeding in October. This operation has a cost but is generally sustained directly by many farmers that have special tools for land levelling operations. The abolition of CAP subsidies may pose severe difficulties to many farmers because CAP and other subsidies provide a basic income in the farming activities (in particular for arable land).