SALAM-MED: Sustainable Approaches to LAnd and water Management in MEditerranean Drylands (DBA.AD001.505)

Area tematica

Scienze bio-agroalimentari

Area progettuale

Struttura responsabile del progetto di ricerca

Istituto per la Protezione Sostenibile delle Piante (IPSP)

Responsabile di progetto

MAURO CENTRITTO
Telefono: 3316158258
E-mail: mauro.centritto@cnr.it

Abstract

Land degradation and desertification (LDD) in the Mediterranean (MED) is becoming increasingly pronounced due to climate change and increasing pressures on agricultural and forest land. This has negative implications for the provision of ecosystem services, climate change mitigation, food security and the social, economic and political domains. The confluence of climatological, agronomic, social and economic factors inducing and resulting from LDD requires integrated holistic approaches. The SALAM-MED consortium of research organisations, NGOs, SMEs and the FAO working across the MED, will utilise six living lab (LL) 'hotspots' that will help to address the ecological and social heterogeneity of the MED drylands. This approach will develop coherent eco-technological and socio-economic strategies to improve water management while preventing LDD and remediate degraded land. LDD of drylands is fundamentally driven by insufficient water availability. Water scarcity induces conflicts over the use of water for agricultural and civil purposes potentially leading to inappropriate water management that exacerbates LDD.

Obiettivi

Heterogeneity of environmental, agricultural and social conditions leads to strong sub-regional differences in water and land use across the MED drylands, that require tailored practical solutions to boost sustainable development. The key objective of SALAM-MED is to identify, test and validate tailored, "nature-based" practical solutions to enhance the resilience of endangered MED dryland socio-ecological systems or to restore degraded ecosystems in arid and hyper-arid lands. New scientific-based knowledge, integrated tools and processes will be developed, ground tested and validated through the Living Labs to address LD and water management across a wide range of "hotspots" of dryland socio-ecological systems. The SALAM-MED hotspots encapsulate a wide range of societal, agricultural, forestry and climatological conditions relevant to the MED region. The technologies validated within SALAM-MED will facilitate the efficient usage of 'every last drop' of water for civic, agricultural and ecosystem services in these hotspots, with the potential to scale-up at the policy-making level and scale out to similar socio-ecological systems across the MED.

Data inizio attività

01/03/2022

Parole chiave

Biobased technologies, dryland agricultural & forestry systems,, living labs, dryland restoration,, , water harvesting, adaptive vegetation management water management

Ultimo aggiornamento: 05/07/2025