Pedoenvironments of the Mediterranean Countries: Resources and Threats

The Mediterranean regions possess, besides a great cultural heritage and an advanced economy and technology, remarkable environmental resources, consisting of a variety of soils, landscapes, waters, fauna, and flora. But high anthropic pressure, global warming, the heterogeneity of state interventions, even urbanization and “littoralization”, as well as some rather short-sighted policies, are jeopardizing the quality and conservation of many ecosystems and the productive capacities of soils. In this paper the peculiar properties of the Mediterranean soils and the degradation and consumption processes closely related to anthropic activities and the cycles of erosion are briefly examined.