Desertification and land degradation: origins, processes and solutions

Table of Contents

1. Authors and acknowledgements
2. Introduction
   1. Aims
   2. Definitions and key concepts
   3. Synthesis of previous and ongoing projects
   4. Key issues and outline
3. Evolution of desertification in the Mediterranean
   1. Climatic fluctuation
   2. Human influence
4. Primary drivers of desertification
   1. Biophysical and socio-economic causes
   2. Pathways of desertification
   3. Driving forces in the Mediterranean
   4. Synthesis of causes for DESIRE hotspots
   5. Conclusions
5. Processes and consequences of desertification in the Mediterranean
   1. Socio-economic and political factors
   2. Biophysical processes
   3. Conclusions
6. Indicators: monitoring desertification
   1. History of monitoring
   2. Indicators
   3. Monitoring and mapping techniques
   4. Concluding remarks
7. Modelling desertification
   1. Definition of modelling
   2. Model types
   3. Biophysical modelling
   4. Socio-economic and participatory modelling
   5. Gaps and progression in modelling
8. Solutions
   1. Biophysical solutions
   2. Political and socio-economic solutions
9. References

Evolution of desertification in the Mediterranean

To understand the origin and evolution of desertification, a brief summary of past environmental changes and processes in the Mediterranean is given. By looking at past desertification, the full length of timescales over which land degradation occurs can be defined and, as a consequence, the notion of reversibility of degradation can be put into a better long-term context (Wainwright, 2004).

The history of desertification in the Mediterranean follows the course of evolution of two groups of causes, i.e. natural and anthropogenic, and their interactions (Sciortino, 2001). Natural events acting on the environment were dominant until ~5000 BC, after which human influence increased until the present (Grove, 1996; Quézel, 1999). Important is, as Puigdefábregas and Mendizabal (1998) underline, that desertification as an outcome of climatic and social driving forces operating synergetically is not a new phenomenon in the Mediterranean region.