<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><xml><records><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>7</ref-type><contributors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">MANAGEMENT OF FOREST SOILS CONSIDERING WATER EROSION AS A CONTROL FACTOR</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification in the Mediterranean Region a Security Issue</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Submitted</style></year></dates><publisher><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Springer Netherlands</style></publisher><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">509-523</style></pages><isbn><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">978-1-4020-3758-0</style></isbn><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">In Mediterranean regions, water erosion is strongly linked to desertification and relates mainly to constraints of land use. Soil and water play very important roles as production factors in agriculture and forest crops, so they are of almost importance in the management of forest soils for sustainable productivity. The density of plants, the amount of water available and the soil properties are aspects to take in account in the management of forestlands. The lower stage canopies of bushes and herbs established in forest lands compete for water with the trees, but are important in the maintenance of ecosystems and absorbing the energy of rainfall and throughfall, thus reducing soil erosion. For the assessment of the available water and the rainfall erosion it is necessary to know the hydrologic behaviour of tree canopies and, mainly, the role of the leaves. The major aim of this study is to present and analyse the role of the leaves in what concerns canopy interception, retention and throughfall and to present values for the leaves' retention and throughfall erosivity, obtained experimentally. Typical conditions, in Southern Portugal, are presented for mixed stands of cork and evergreen oaks, with cereals or pasture covers, and for eucalyptus. Proper management attitudes are necessary to ensure productivity, environment stability (i.e. avoiding desertification) and, consequently, improve homeland and global security.</style></abstract></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>7</ref-type><contributors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">MONITORING TOOLS TO ASSESS VEGETATION SUCCESSIONAL REGRESSION AND PREDICT CATASTROPHIC SHIFTS AND DESERTIFICATION IN MEDITERRANEAN RANGELAND ECOSYSTEMS</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification in the Mediterranean Region a Security Issue</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Submitted</style></year></dates><publisher><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Springer Netherlands</style></publisher><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The relationship between grazing intensity and ecosystem performance is complex and can depend on the prevailing ecological conditions. Previous studies have revealed that, in traditional grazing ecosystems, grazing can reduce ecosystem diversity in poor soils, but increase diversity and productivity in rich ecosystems subject to moderate grazing pressure. We are interested in detecting long-term structural changes or drift in an ecosystem before it is too late to prevent irreversible degradation. We analyzed vegetation spatial patterns and complexities of four Mediterranean communities: Tihmadit Region (Middle Atlas, Morocco), Camiyayla (Namrum) Region (Taurus Mountain, Turkey), Sykia Region (south of the Sithonia Peninsula, Greece), and Cabo de Gata Nijar Natural Park, Spain. Grazing disturbance was most intense near shelter and water points, which lead to gradients in soil surface disruption, compaction, and changes in the composition and cover of perennial vegetation. Dense matorral was more resistant to species loss than were moderately dense and scattered matorral, and grassland. Information fractal dimension decreased as we moved from a dense matorral to a discontinuous matorral, and increased as we moved to a more scattered matorral and to a grassland, which resulted in two opposing processes (interaction declining with ecosystem development, and immigration increasing with degradation) in a common pattern, i.e., small patches homogeneously distributed in the landscape. Characteristic species of the natural vegetation declined in frequency and organization in response to higher grazing disturbance, while species of disturbed areas exhibited the opposite trend. Overall, the spatial organization of the characteristic plants of each community decreased with increasing vegetation degradation, with the intensity of the trend being related to the species’ sensitivity to grazing. Developmental instability analyses of key species were used to determine the sensitivity of dominant key species to grazing pressure. Palatable species, which are better adapted to being eaten, such as Periploca laevigata, Phillyrea latifolia and Genista pseudopilosa, were able to resist moderate grazing pressure, while species of disturbed, grazed sites did not change developmental instability in response to increasing grazing pressure, such as Thymus hyemalis, Teucrium lusitanicum and Cistus monspeliensis. The usefulness of these monitoring tools in preventing land degradation is discussed.</style></abstract></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>7</ref-type><contributors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">THE CHALLENGES OF LAND AND WATER RESOURCES DEGRADATION IN JORDAN : DIAGNOSIS AND SOLUTIONS</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification in the Mediterranean Region a Security Issue</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2014</style></year></dates><publisher><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Springer Netherlands</style></publisher><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">201-226</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification is the loss of complexity of biological and/or economic productivity of crop-, range- or wood-lands. Reasons of such a loss is mainly due to climatic change and unsustainable human activities. The arid and semi-arid lands of Jordan are sensitive to human interference that resulted in a severe depletion of its natural resources and in different forms of land degradation due to multiple interaction of socio-economic factors. Further, degradation will continue if human activities are not carefully controlled and managed. Almost 90% of the land area of Jordan receives less than 200 mm of rainfall annually. This is reflected in poor structural stability of soils and the subsequent vulnerability to excessive erosion following shallow rainstorm events. Such a fragile ecosystem has also been manifested by non sustainable land use patterns and poor vegetative cover of the range land and the remaining forest batchs. Therefore, most of the economic activities take place on the remaining 10% of the land area and the competition between different user groups for these lands is, therefore, intense. Factors such as livestock and grazing practices, inappropriate agricultural and irrigation techniques, the marginalizing of lands, poor socio-economic conditions and a high population growth rate as well as weak institutional arrangements need to be considered in a comprehensive and integrated framework. Rangelands are deteriorating at an accelerated rate due to widespread overgrazing, uncontrolled herd movements, firewood collection, unsuitable cultivation practices, and persisted periodic droughts, all of which worsen ecological conditions. Cultivation of marginal lands, and unsound practices such as ploughing down slopes, and use of heavy farm machinery have accelerated rate of soil erosion and lowered land productivity. Urbanisation is also steadily encroaching onto good quality agricultural land in the higher rainfall areas of the Jordanian highlands, reducing the traditional production areas of food crops such as wheat and barley. Jordan suffers from a scarcity of water resources, which is compounded by poor management of existing supplies. Pumping of aquifers for irrigation and municipal uses has been exceeding their renewable safe yield. No serious attempts have been committed to improve natural recharge into these aquifers, encourage water harvesting practices or adopt water conservation measures, especially in irrigation. The current demand for municipal, industrial and agricultural water in Jordan exceeds sustainable water supply and the problem is further aggravated in dry winters like the case in the 1998/99 season. Irrigation has made crop production possible in many areas but the long-term effects of fertilizers and pesticides on water quality, as well as on soil salinity, have been given only limited attention. Furthermore, poor wastewater treatment, and industrial pollution have compounded the problem. Current and future deterioration of water quality will have marked effects on land degradation. Socio-economic factors contribute negatively to desertification and to efforts to combat its effects, poverty constitutes a vicious circle linking deterioration of natural resources to deterioration of livelihoods. Also, the population increase is adding an additional pressure to land and water resources, as people need to encroach further on fragile soils, sparse vegetation and limited water resources. The institutional capabilities of the Government as well as the existing legislation and policies need to address the serious degradation of its agricultural, range and forest lands, and aim to improve land capabilities and increase production for communities will require support. Financial and technical support will be required to introduce new agricultural products, agricultural techniques, water harvesting techniques that will result in increased land productivity, yet with less pressure on fertility and water resources. Also, communities will be encouraged to engage in diversified economic activities that will alleviate pressure on natural resources. This may be accomplished through the adoption of participatory approaches that raise awareness of local communities to threats of desertification and to strengthen local institutions, which are essential for reversing desertification and environmental degradation, especially considering Jordan’s transition economy.</style></abstract></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>7</ref-type><contributors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">LAND USE CHANGE DETECTION AS A BASIS FOR ANALYSING DESERTIFICATION PROCESSES : A CASE STUDY IN TABERNAS</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification in the Mediterranean Region a Security Issue</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2006</style></year></dates><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">341-352</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">This contribution proposes an integrated approach to detect and quantify land-use and land-cover changes as a basis for studying and predicting changes in environmental processes leading to desertification. The approach has been applied in Tabernas (Almería, Southeast Spain), a representative area of the Mediterranean region where a combination of extreme environmental conditions and modifications of the land-use pattern that occurred in the last decades have led to increase the risk of desertification. The approach is based on multi temporal records of remotely sensed data and field survey. Sets of aerial photographs taken in the fifties (1956), the eighties (1981) and the nineties (1995) were used to map land use and cover in the three different periods of the last fifty years. The results indicate that from 1956 to 2000, a total area of 5218 hectares of land was subjected to change in land use. The main land cover type that was subjected to change was dry farming. Throughout the past four and half decades 2507 hectares (32%) of dry farming has changed into different land use types, of which 1447.7 (57.7%) hectares changed to irrigated farmland, 857 (34%) became abandoned and about 202 (8.3%) were subjected to various activities (infrastructures, industries, etc.) that have left the area without a vegetation cover. The abandoned areas have evolved to areas with a weed type non-permanent bush cover, which is totally different from the natural cover in the region. The land abandonment and the change from dry farming to irrigation seem to exert pressure on the environment, that can lead to an increase in desertification processes such as soil erosion, salinisation and pollution. Most of the recent irrigated farms are on slopes ranging in inclination from 2 to 8%. Important erosion processes can occur both on these slopes and on abandoned areas depending on other influencing factors (e.g., soil erodibility).</style></abstract></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>7</ref-type><contributors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">URBAN GROWTH DYNAMICS ( 1956-1998 ) IN MEDITERRANEAN COASTAL REGIONS : THE CASE OF ALICANTE , SPAIN</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification in the Mediterranean Region a Security Issue</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">1998</style></year></dates><publisher><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Springer Netherlands</style></publisher><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">325-340</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Among factors causing soil degradation one of the most important, although less studied in Mediterranean environments, is the irreversible loss of soil due to urbanisation processes, inserted into the more general concept of soil sealing. In coastal Mediterranean regions, such as the Valencia Region, Spain, land cover transformations are mainly produced by contemporary socio-economic changes that have produced a drift from traditional agriculture to industrial and tourism economies, reinforced by population’s trends to concentrate in cities or larger urban regions. Evaluation of soil sealing is then a key element to understand soil degradation and the disappearance, in most cases, of highly productive soils. This work, inserted within a major study on land use-cover change and soil degradation of metropolitan areas in the Valencia Region, presents the preliminary results on the urban-non urban (open agrarian and natural spaces) dynamics in the municipality of Alicante, the second largest city in the region. Three sets of panchromatic air photos for the years 1956, 1985 and 1998 have been used. After air photo scanning, on screen digitising using a base digital topographic map at scale 1:10,000, was applied to extract two major types of soil cover: agrarian and urban. A Geographical Information System vector structure has been implemented for cartographic comparison. Finally, to identify spatial and temporal changes maps and overlays together with synthetic tables were produced in order to assess soil degradation. Results show that there has been a substantial loss of soil devoted mainly to agriculture. Urban growth can be differentiated into three distinct spatial patterns: 1) edge compact enlargement of the city boundaries, including growth following the main road network; 2) compact new urbanisation alongside the coast and 3) the colonisation by groups of individual residences mainly over continental open spaces. One of the main impacts of such new urban pattern has been the loss of the most fertile soils distributed over the alluvial plains around the city, which has been mainly occupied by the tourist and residential buildings</style></abstract></record></records></xml>