Read at : Google Alert – desertification
Europeans offer solutions to beat forest and land desertification
FP7 News
EU-funded researchers are on a quest to fight desertification in dry forests and agricultural lands that dot the Mediterranean region and China, an effort that fuels the initiative of the International Year of Forests, a global platform that targets the sustainable management of the world’s forests.
The LEDDRA (‘Land and ecosystem degradation and desertification: assessing the fit of responses’) project is backed with almost EUR 3.1 million under the Environment Theme of the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Efforts to suppress the process by which land becomes increasingly arid until no vegetation grows will effectively bolster economic development and create jobs in rural areas, experts say.
Headed by the Research Unit of the University of the Aegean in Greece, the LEDDRA consortium brings together experts from China, Germany, Greece, Italy, Morocco, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom to advance the comprehensive study of the socio-environmental fit of responses to land and ecosystem degradation and desertification (LEDD) in several contexts. Ultimately, sharing multidisciplinary experiences for studying responses to soil degradation in forests, pastures, croplands and shrublands is key.
Taking an ecosystem approach, the project partners are using an integrated methodology to deal with and respond to environmental, socioeconomic and institutional conditions that contribute to or detract from sustainable land management and societal welfare. The team is also assessing the associated costs and benefits to diverse stakeholders, barriers to and opportunities for adoption, and knowledge transfer processes, according to the partners.
Specific areas being evaluated by the LEDDRA project are found in China, Greece, Italy, Morocco, Portugal and Spain. The partners have already found that the areas in question, which are impacted by arid and semi-arid climatic conditions and have been occupied by people for many years, show desertification processes that have reduced water and soil availability.
‘Good management will allow the recovery and conservation of both elements,’ says Professor Artemi Cerdà of the University of Valencia in Spain, a LEDDRA partner. To ‘assess whether policies are being efficient is the work of LEDDRA.’
Only the solid management of existing forests can ensure soil conservation and water resources, according to the team.
(continued)
