Territorial disparities, natural resource distribution, and land degradation: a case study in southern Europe |
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| Authors: | Luca Salvati Marco Zitti |
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| Institution: | (1) c/o Department of National Accounting and Analysis of Social Processes, University of Rome ‘Sapienza’, Piazzale A. Moro 5, I-00185 Rome, Italy;(2) CRA-Central Office for Crop Ecology, Via del Caravita 7a, I-00186 Rome, Italy |
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| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to analyse the territorial disparities in some socio-economic and environmental factors involved
in land degradation (LD) processes in a dry Mediterranean region. A simplified framework in which ecological and economic
factors may increase inequality in natural resource distribution along the elevation gradient and accelerate LD is illustrated.
To test at a local scale if territorial disparities observed in such factors have increased in the last period, we studied
changes in LD sensitivity over thirty years in Latium, central Italy, a region prone to soil degradation phenomena. An estimate
of LD sensitivity at the municipality level was obtained through a synthetic index (ISD) composed by three partial indicators
analysing respectively climate and soil conditions (CLI), land use characteristics (LAN), and human pressure (POP). ISD and
the three partial indicators were computed separately for 1970 and 2000. The divergence in LD sensitivity among coastal and
inland areas significantly increased over the study period. In the former zones, median ISD increased with a reduction in
score variability among municipalities; the reverse pattern was observed in the latter zones. Differences in ISD score among
the elevation gradient are especially due to human factors affecting land use changes and agriculture intensification. New
findings to be achieved in the context of human impacts on the environment as an original contribution to the study of LD
at a local scale were finally delineated. |
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| Keywords: | Land degradation Territorial disparities Indicators Elevation gradient Latium Mediterranean basin |
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