Land-use evolution and degradation in Lesvos (Greece): a historical approach

Fifty Years on: Long‐term Patterns of Land Sensitivity to Desertification in Italy

“…This change suggests a polarisation in non-affected and critical land that is less affected by the latitude gradient than in the past. This pattern depends instead on the interaction between changing climate quality and specific land-use trajectories (agricultural intensification, urban sprawl, littoralization and land abandonment, for example) affecting land management conditions (Marathianou et al, 1999;Portnov & Safriel, 2004;Simeonakis et al, 2007;Detsis, 2010;Barbayiannis et al, 2011), confirming the importance of the integrated (socioeconomic and biophysical) assessment of land degradation processes (Conacher & Sala, 1998) CONCLUSIONS This paper provides an original contribution to the study of natural and human-derived changes influencing desertification risk in a developed country. Results show, for the first time in Europe, the nonlinear long-term trends in land sensitivity to desertification in Italy, highlighting the convergence between non-affected areas (showing increasing levels of sensitivity) and already sensitive areas.…”

The effects of land use and land cover changes (LULCC) in Kuseyr plateau of Turkey on erosion

“…These changes also played an effective role in the decrease of erosion. Even though this study was conducted in the eastern Mediterranean water basin, the change taking place due to socio-economic reasons shows parallelism with the other parts of the Mediterranean basin as well (Giourga, 1999;Marathianou et al, 2000;Tağıl, 2007).…”

Grazing Land Productivity, Floral Diversity, and Management in a Semi-Arid Mediterranean Landscape

“…Western Lesvos is a typical semi-arid Mediterranean area, facing socio-economic and environmental issues [36], leading to soil degradation and desertification [47]. According to estimations, large parts of the island are already degraded and under the process of desertification, including areas such as oak forests [40,48]. According to [49], the region is a typical case of the association between several socio-economic development policies and the environmental degradation process with practices such as overgrazing and deforestation, but the degree of dependency on sheep farming for livelihoods in many remote villages is high [38,49].…”