Italy
Desertification
Vulnerabilities - Italy
More than 1/5 of the Italian territory is at risk of desertification involving over 40% of the South (5). Critical areas, amounting to 9.1% of the country surface, are mainly localized in Sardegna, Sicilia, Puglia, Basilicata and Calabria regions, where environmental conditions are more unfavourable and agriculture and sheep-farming activities strongly affect the territory settings; however, worrying conditions exist also in more northern regions like Campania, Lazio, Toscana and Emilia Romagna (2,6). Under the present climate conditions and land use, 3.7% of the Italian territory is very vulnerable, while 32.15% is mildly vulnerable and 64.11% not very vulnerable to desertification. Mildly and not very vulnerable areas are prone to become more vulnerable under some of the climate change conditions indicated by future scenarios (2).
Read moreVulnerabilities - Europe
An estimated 115 million hectares or 12% of Europe’s total land area are subject to water erosion, and 42 million hectares are affected by wind erosion. An estimated 45% of European soils have low organic matter content, principally in Southern Europe but also in areas of France, the UK and Germany (4). Soil degradation is already intense in parts of the Mediterranean and central-eastern Europe and, together with prolonged drought periods and fires, is already contributing to an increased risk of desertification (8).
Climatic conditions make the Mediterranean region one of the areas most severely affected by land degradation. 12 of the 27 European Union Member States declared themselves as affected countries under the 1992 United Nation Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD): in the Mediterranean: Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain and in central and eastern Europe: Hungary, Latvia, Slovak Republic, Bulgaria and Romania (3).
Adaptation strategies Italy
Italy has developed in 1999 a National Action Plan for Combating Drought and Desertification (NAP). The NAP envisages a series of actions targeting agriculture, forestry, land planning, as well as awareness-raising strategies and education campaigns. There are currently no estimates of the costs and benefits of adapting to the increased risk of desertification posed by climate change (1).
The National Action Programme entrusted the Regions and Watershed Authorities with the responsibility to implement specific agronomic, civil and social measures and to adopt supporting information, training and research programmes in the following overriding sectors: Soil protection - Sustainable management of water resources - Reduction of environmental impact from productive activities - Land restoration. … Adaptation strategies against desertification also involve water and groundwater protection. The European Commission regards water scarcity and droughts as a key challenge and has thus identified an initial set of policy options to be taken at European, national and regional levels to address the problem. Amongst the measures proposed are: a sound water pricing policy; an efficient resource allocation; a better drought risk management; water saving promotion; better information. Water protection plans will have to take into consideration different climate change scenarios (2).
References
The references below are cited in full in a separate map 'References'. Please click here if you are looking for the full references for Italy.
- Carraro and Sgobbi (2008)
- Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea of Italy (2007)
- EEA, JRC and WHO (2008)
- European Commission (DG Environment) (2007)
- Costantini (2007), in: Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea of Italy (2009)
- Carraro (2008), in: Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea of Italy (2009)
- Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea of Italy (2009)
- IPCC (2014)