A Fifty-Year Sustainability Assessment of Italian Agro-Forest Districts

Sustainability

Fabio Recanatesi³  Matteo Clemente⁴  Efstathios Grigoriadis¹  Flavia Ranalli²  Marco Zitti²  Luca Salvati² 

[1] Department of Architecture and Project, La Sapienza University of Rome, Via Flaminia 359, Rome I-00196, Italy;Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Via della Navicella 2–4, Rome I-00184, Italy;Department of Agriculture, Forest, Nature and Energy (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, Via S. Camillo de Lellis snc, Viterbo I-01100, Italy;;Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Via G. Duranti, 93, Perugia I-06125, Italy

关键词: vulnerability;    soil degradation;    environmental indicators;    desertification;    Italy;   

DOI  :  10.3390/su8010032

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

As cropland management and land use shifted towards more intensive practices, global land degradation increased drastically. Understanding relationships between ecological and socioeconomic drivers of soil and landscape degradation within these landscapes in economically dynamic contexts such as the Mediterranean region, requires multi-target and multi-scalar approaches covering long-term periods. This study provides an original approach for identifying desertification risk drivers and sustainable land management strategies within Italian agro-forest districts. An Environmental Sensitivity Area (ESA) approach, based on four thematic indicators (climate, soil, vegetation and land-use) and a composite index of desertification risk (ESAI), was used to evaluate changes in soil vulnerability and landscape degradation between the years 1960 and 2010. A multivariate model was developed to identify the most relevant drivers causing changes in land susceptibility at the district scale. Larger districts, and those with a higher proportion of their total surface area classified as agro-forest, had a significantly lower increase in land susceptibility to degradation during the 50 years when compared with the remaining districts. We conclude that preserving economic viability and ecological connectivity of traditional, extensive agricultural systems is a key measure to mitigate the desertification risk in the Mediterranean region.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.