Desertification and erosion sensitivity. A case study in southern Italy: the Tusciano River catchment

The ESAs (Environmentally sensitive areas) procedure was recently developed in the framework of MEDALUS European project to identify desertification-sensitive areas and used in many Mediterranean countries (Greece, Portugal, Italy, Egypt). The identification of areas sensitive to desertification by using the ESAs model was carried out in the Tusciano River basin (261 km2) located in southern Italy (Campania region). All data characterizing the four groups of parameters related to soil quality, climate quality, vegetation quality and management quality were introduced in a geographical database, and superimposed using a GIS. A sensitivity analysis highlighted the impact of desertification on the river Tusciano catchment, highly diversified in terms of morphological, geological, climatic and land use features. The results of the ESAs model, showing that more than half of the area is sensitive to desertification, were compared with those related to soil loss, achieved by Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation, based approximately on the same environmental factors. Nevertheless, ESAs procedure considers a wider range of parameters, allowing to characterize in greater detail the catchment in terms of climate, geomorphology, vegetation cover and socio-economic features. The drawn map therefore characterizes the sensitivity to erosion/desertification of the Tusciano catchment and can be regarded as a synthesis-sensitivity map, showing the areas with higher vulnerability on which mitigation measures should be focused.