Preparing desertification areas for increased climate change (LIFE DESERT-ADAPT)

Description:

LIFE DESERT-ADAPT aims to demonstrate the positive effect of an integrated ecosystems approach that combines climate change adaptation and mitigation targets with improved socioeconomic development opportunities in areas subjected to land degradation and desertification. It will:

• Demonstrate Desertification Adaptation Models (DAMs), aimed at countering aridification and subsequent land desertification in regions in Italy, Spain and Portugal. These DAMs will include innovative adaption technologies concerning land use, soil conservation and plant support – they will demonstrate combinations of techniques and species variations with regard to soil, plants and seeds, growing aids, mycorrhizae and facilities for ecosystem services. By incorporating climate change variables and structural and functional landscape complexity they seek to optimise resilience and adaptation to climate change, targeting the improvement of ecosystems and the socioeconomic system;
• Develop a farmer adoption system – a commercial approach with short supply chains providing economic incentives for farmers to adopt DAM land use systems – to maximise outreach to farming communities;
• Promote and replicate the DAMs and the project’s unique combinations of techniques and income sources from products and services among different stakeholders. In particular, local farmers seeking opportunities from climate resilient and profitable land use and policy-makers, to enable upscaling in the project’s regions and beyond;
• Contribute to climate change mitigation through the climate-resilient land use systems introduced to enable the recovery of vulnerable and desertified land areas. These will lead to an increase in overall carbon sequestration in the soil and in above-ground vegetation and lower the carbon footprint of the farmed products.

Project information

Lead

Università degli Studi della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli"

Partners

Sociedade Agrícola Vargas Madeira, Lda, Portugal

Forestry Service Group BV, Netherlands

FACULDADE DE CIENCIAS DA UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA, Portugal

TerraSIG Lda., Portugal

UNIVERSIDAD DE EXTREMADURA, Spain

Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal

FREGUESIA DE CABEÇA GORDA, Portugal

REAM SRL, Italy Município de Serpa, Portugal

Municipality of Lampedusa e Linosa, Italy

CONSORZIO SICILIANO LEGALLINEFELICI, Italy

Ayuntamiento de Hoyos, Spain

SOCIEDADE AGRÍCOLA DA SOBREIRA, LDA, Portugal

Ayuntamiento de Valverde del Fresno, Spain

Associaçao de Defesa do Patrimonio de Mértola, Portugal

Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italy

Viveros Forestalis La Dehesa SL, Spain

Societa Agricola Franco Turco, Italy

Source of funding

LIFE PRogramme