Soil protection in sloping mediterranean agri-environments: lectures and exercises

The long history of the Mediterranean records striking examples of success and failure of land use models and management practices, which, in the latter case, are a heavy heritage for the soil resource in this basin. At present day, many forms of soil degradation threaten Mediterranean soils as, for instance, salinization, pollution, structural degradation and erosion. There is a geographical pattern of distribution of these forms of soil degradation and soil erosion is first in rank as far as sloping areas are concerned. Corresponding to a very large surface of Mediterranean land, these are especially sensitive areas, where soils are a qualitatively scarce resource. Sloping Mediterranean agri-environments heir a very significant part of cropping systems, crops and products traditional of the basin, vineyards and olive groves being the most relevant ones. Improvements in productivity and economic income of these areas are imperative to reduce population depletion and its impacts on territory sustainability. On the other hand, the long-term cultivated and highly eroded slopes ask for alternative land use models and management options that allow recovery of already much degraded environments. The importance of sloping areas, their land uses and misuses, comes also from their hydrological key role that, in the Mediterranean, has large consequences for water conservation, flood hazard and off-site effects of soil erosion. Soil protection initiatives are needed to cope with the threats to soil resource highlighted above. The thematic strategy for soil protection in Europe clearly sets the topic in high priority at policy level, as the need for soil protection is there stated in specific terms. This new political background encourages defining specifically oriented rationale in view soil protection measures design and implementation. Actually, expertise acquired in the last couple of decades throughout Europe, as part of the European strong research efforts in the topic, shows the high level of specialization necessary to tackle with soil protection issues. The still growing research-borne information has to be converted into technically useful tools for ―real world‖ problem solving. The thematic strategy for soil protection in Europe asks for such a challenge and problems posed on Mediterranean sloping areas are certainly important test-subjects. Foreword T. de Figueiredo & N. Evelpidou vi Figueiredo & Evelpidou As requirements stated in regulations eventually issued from the thematic strategy for soil protection in Europe become more specific, demand is expected to grow for technical staff able to deal with the design and implementation of soil protection measures. This is why and what for SPinSMEDE was designed, planned and organized. SPinSMEDE, acronym for Soil Protection in Sloping Mediterranean Agri- Environments, labels an Erasmus Intensive Programne that first took place in spring 2008, in Portugal, at Escola Superior Agrária of the Instituto Politécnico de Bragança. Intensive Programmes, within the Lifelong Learning Programme, are short duration higher education programmes, fully creditated within the ECTS framework. They stem on a transnational partnership of EU Universities, where students and professors come from, as in an Erasmus mobility scheme. For SPinSMEDE two-week and 6 credits Intensive Programme, the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, the co-ordinating institution, promoted a partnership including the Wageningen University (The Netherlands), the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece), the University of Lleida (Spain), and the Unversity of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). The book objectives, target audience and general sequence of subjects, are all the same as those defined for the programme itself. Therefore, it is aimed at providing basic tools to assess soil degradation and to design soil protection initiatives in Mediterranean sloping areas. Rooted in both the EU thematic strategy for soil protection in Europe and the special environmental sensitivity of Mediterranean slopes, it is oriented towards the capacitation in such specific issue of post-graduation students, especially those with background in agricultural, forest or environmental engineering and those from life or earth sciences. The programme comprises two main parts, and this is reflected in the book contents. In order to allow a better insight on the Mediterranean environment, the texts of overview lectures addressed to geography and geology, climate, soils and vegetation are also presented. Background subjects, the first part, addresses soil degradation processes and assessment, soil protection measures design and implementation applying technical and socio-economic criteria. It is intended to provide the base knowledge necessary to better understand subjects treated in the second part. Selected case studies are presented and explored in the second part, and they concern land use typical of Mediterranean slopes, such as vineyards, olive groves, forests or shrubs. Not by chance, the book falls somewhere between the classical text book and the professionally oriented handbook. As so, after a more theorectically developed topic, the reader may find exercises that set the necessary links with ―real world‖ conditions and problems, and that guide in the application of methods to approach it. This book assembles the texts and reading material of most of the lectures and exercises given during the two editions of SPinSMEDE, the 2008, held in Bragança, and the 2009, held in Athens (a third edition is planned for spring 2010, in Santiago de Compostela). It is felt as a still in progress work, because the relevance of this thematic seemingly requires the attention of a wider audience than the one it may reach now, and, in turn, this goal asks for editorial refinements that, for the moment, could not be achieved according to expectations. Editors and contributors deeply wish their work to serve the outstanding and demanding cause of soil resource protection in the Mediterranean sloping agri-environments

SPINSMEDE: a transnational taining experience on soil protection

SPinSMEDE, acronym of Soil Protection in Sloping Mediterranean Agri- Environments, an Erasmus Intensive Programme, funded by the EC Lifelong Learning Programme, was designed and implemented following the policy context of the Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection in Europe. This document announced expectable demand for technical competences to meet increased requirements on the issue, most needed to cope with the specific soil degradation problems of Mediterranean hill-slopes. SPinSMEDE took place during three years (2008-2010), in three different places (Portugal, Greece and Spain), involving students and lecturers from five Universities. The presentation aims at reporting this transnational training experience on soil protection. The design, implementation and evaluation phases are described, outlining the main background elements, methodological approaches and outcomes of each phase. Namely, context-driven justification of the project, a description of the partnership and programme contents are included in the design phase. Programme implementation is addressed in terms of students profile, activities performed, assessment requirements, support material provided, and project deliverables. After describing the programme evaluation procedures developed and applied, the discussion focus on SPinSMEDE success, drawbacks, and problems arose and ways adopted to cope with them. Final remarks state main lessons learned and and programme follow-up activities envisaged

SPINSMEDE: first presentation of a transnational training experience on soil protection

SPinSMEDE, acronym of Soil Protection in Sloping Mediterranean Agri-Environments, an Erasmus Intensive Programme, funded by the EC Lifelong Learning Programme, was designed and implemented following the policy context of the Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection in Europe. This document announced expectable demand for technical competences to meet increased requirements on the issue, most needed to cope with the specific soil degradation problems of Mediterranean hill-slopes. SPinSMEDE took place during three years (2008-2010), in three different places (Portugal, Greece and Spain), involving students and lecturers from five Universities. The presentation aims at reporting, at a preliminary stage of data exploration, this transnational training experience on soil protection. The design, implementation and evaluation phases are described, outlining the main background elements, methodological approaches and outcomes of each phase. Namely, context-driven justification of the project, a description of the partnership and programme contents are included in the design phase. Programme implementation is addressed in terms of students profile, activities performed, assessment requirements, support material provided, and project deliverables. After describing the programme evaluation procedures developed and applied, the discussion focuses on SPinSMEDE success, drawbacks, and problems arose and ways adopted to cope with them. Final remarks state main lessons learned and and programme follow-up activities envisaged

Flash Flood Susceptibility Evaluation in Human-Affected Areas Using Geomorphological Methods—The Case of 9 August 2020, Euboea, Greece. A GIS-Based Approach.

Flash floods occur almost exclusively in small basins, and they are common in small Mediterranean catchments. They pose one of the most common natural disasters, as well as one of the most devastating. Such was the case of the recent flood in Euboea island, in Greece, in August 2020. A field survey was accomplished after the 2020 flash floods in order to record the main impacts of the event and identify the geomorphological and man-made causes. The flash flood susceptibility in the urbanized alluvial fans was further assessed using a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based approach. Our findings suggest that a large portion of the alluvial fans of Politika, Poros and Mantania streams are mainly characterized by high and very high hazard. In fact, ~27% of the alluvial fans of Politika and Poros streams are characterized with very high susceptibility, and ~54% of Psachna area. GIS results have been confirmed by field observations after the 2020 flash flood, with significant damages noted, such as debris flows and infrastructure damages, in buildings, bridges and the road networks. In addition, even though the adopted approach may be more time-consuming in comparison to purely computational methods, it has the potential of being more accurate as it combines field observations and the effect of past flooding events

Multifaceted Impacts of Sustainable Land Management in Drylands : A Review

Peer reviewe

Coastal Boulders on the SE Coasts of Cyprus as Evidence of Palaeo-Tsunami Events

Cyprus has a long history of tsunami events, as noted by archaeological and geological records. At Cape Greco (southeastern Cyprus) large boulders have been noted, however, no detailed geomorphological research has taken place so far and the related high energy event was undated until now. Our research aims to record in detail and interpret these large boulders deposits. The boulders, located between ≈3 and 4.5 m a.m.s.l., are fragments of an upper Pleistocene aeolianite, which is overlaying unconformly a lower Pleistocene calcarenite. Dimensions and spatial distribution of 272 small, medium, and large boulders were documented, while their precise distance from the coastline was recorded by field mapping and remote sensing, using Differential GPS (DGPS), drone, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technics. Field data were subsequently combined with hydrodynamic equations, in order to determine the extreme event(s) that caused their transport inland, and radiocarbon dating was accomplished on three samples of Vermetus sp. to determine the chronological context. Our findings appear to broadly correlate with the 1303 AD tsunami, which has displaced at least part of the studied boulders, and one other undocumented event at AD 1512-1824. The large number of boulders and sizes in our study area further indicate that their dislocation is most likely owed to multiple events from various sources

Assessment of Fire Effects on Surface Runoff Erosion Susceptibility: The Case of the Summer 2021 Forest Fires in Greece

The wildfires of summer 2021 in Greece were among the most severe forest fire events that have occurred in the country over the past decade. The conflagration period lasted for 20 days (i.e., from 27 July to 16 August 2021) and resulted in the devastation of an area of more than 3600 Km2. Forest fire events of similar severity also struck other Mediterranean countries during this period. Apart from their direct impacts, forest fires also render an area more susceptible to runoff erosion by massively removing its vegetation, among other factors. It is clear that immediately after a forest fire, most areas are much more susceptible to erosion. In this paper, we evaluate the erosion hazard of Attica, Northern Euboea, and the Peloponnese that were devastated by forest fires during the summer of 2021 in Greece, in comparison with their geological and geomorphological structures, as well as land cover and management. Given that a very significant part of these areas were burnt during the major conflagrations of this summer, erosion risk, as well as flood risk, are expected to be very high, especially for the coming autumn and winter. For the evaluation of erosion risk, the burnt areas were mapped, and the final erosion-risk maps were constructed through GIS software. The final maps suggest that most of the burnt areas are highly susceptible to future surface runoff erosion events