OUTLINE OF THE MEDALUS PROJECT

Since 1989 the European Community has established and funded a number of international programmes of research to address the issues of desertification, or land degradation, and the increasing demand on water resources across southern Europe. MEDALUS has been one of the projects in this programme, (DGXII, Environment Programme) and has sought to improve understanding of a wide range of physical, environmental problems, and to suggest and develop options for their amelioration. Since its start in 1991, there have been three phases to the project the third of which ended in June 1999. The emphasis of the research has changed in each phase and the partners also changed to reflect this.

Summary of MEDALUS I

There were five principle objectives in the MEDALUS I project, which ran from January 1991 to December 1992 and had 17 partners. The first objective was to develop a physically-based model to describe environmental processes operating at the hillslope scale. The model was supplied with data for development and verification from seven field sites located along the northern edge of the Mediterranean, from the Alentejo in Portugal to Thessaloniki in Greece. Each of the field sites had the same experimental design and each monitored the same set of 55 parameters. Climate change studies looked at trends in past rainfall and temperature over the entire Mediterranean Basin and general circulation model scenarios were used to generate future climate scenarios also to be used in the hillslope model. Remote sensing was used to develop vegetation and lithological maps over much larger areas. Socio-economic studies set possible future land use changes in the context of past changes from pre-historic to recent times.

The document and data archive contains a complete listing of all the papers published and reports produced as a result of the first phase of MEDALUS. However some of the more important products are:

• The MEDALUS Field Manual (L.H. Cammeraat, Editor) which contains the experimental protocols for the standardised field programme.
• Brandt, C. Jane and Thornes, John B. (Editors), 1996. Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester. 554 pp
• Cammeraat, L.H. and Prinsen, H. (Editors), 1994. The MEDALUS Application. A CD ROM containing the entire data base collected during the field campaign plus the MEDALUS hillslope model.

Summary of MEDALUS II

Many of the activities started in MEDALUS I were continued into MEDALUS II and other topics were started. MEDALUS II ran from January 1993 to September 1995 and the number of research partners rose to 44. The programme of field monitoring was continued and the number and range of special field site studies was expanded. A new, physically-based model (MEDRUSH) was developed, designed to operate at the river basin scale and to simulate landscape changes over hundreds, instead of tens, of years. The climate work continued and expanded into the analysis of extreme events. New investigations were started into ways in which the effects of desertification might be mitigated, using alternative land uses or plant cover strategies. However the major development was the establishment of three target areas, large river basins in which to develop all the thematic research to a regional scale. The three target areas chosen for MEDALUS II were the Guadalentín-Segura Basin, Spain; the Agri Basin in Italy; and the Abruzzo region of Italy.

Again, the document and data archive contains a complete listing of all the papers published and reports produced from the second phase of MEDALUS. However some of the more important products are:

• Brandt, C. Jane, Geeson, Nichola A. and Thornes, John B. (Editors), in preparation. Mediterranean Desertification: A Mosaic of Processes and Responses. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester. In press
• Mairota, P., Thornes, J.B. and Geeson, N. 1998. Atlas of Mediterranean Environments in Europe: The Desertification Context. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, 205 pp
• The MEDRUSH model. At the moment the MEDRUSH model is still under development and is only available for use by other members of the project.

Summary of MEDALUS III

Again, some aspects of the research from MEDALUS I and II were continued in a third phase, which ran from January 1996 to June 1999. There were 30 partners including groups from Hungary and Israel. Four specific objectives are highlighted in this summary.

The first objective was to build on the core field and ecological studies, and to consolidate and apply the models in as many areas as possible. Three of the original seven field sites were chosen for continued intensive monitoring. This enabled analysis of field data over a longer period of time, and the use of the data to further develop the MEDRUSH model. The model was implemented in the Guadalentín and Agri basins where problems associated with desertification have been identified. In this way we continued to develop our understanding of the physical and ecological processes underlying environmental change in desertified areas. In addition, our results could contribute to international efforts to solve global environmental change problems.

The second objective was to develop and apply a methodology for the use of desertification indicators to identify environmentally sensitive areas at the local level. The identification of sensitive areas, plus the knowledge of what makes them sensitive, is crucial if desertification is to be effectively managed. Again, this work was carried out in target areas, all of which are sensitive to degradation; they were the Guadalentín-Segura Basin in Spain; the Agri Basin in Italy; the inner-lower Alentejo region in Portugal; and the island of Lesvos in Greece. The same methodology was used in all four areas to derive four indicators of soil, climate, vegetation and management quality. The combination of all four indicators gave the environmental sensitivity.

In its third objective, MEDALUS III explored opportunities to address the problems of desertification at a Mediterranean-wide large scale. A regional degradation index was developed for the whole Mediterranean region based on potential soil erosion, with inputs of land cover from remote sensing and climate. Coupled with the regional physical work were several regional economic and social approaches to desertification including the development of tools for dynamic forecasting of socio-economic changes. Both the socio-economic and physical work was supported by the development of detailed Mediterranean-wide climate scenarios.

In the use of desertification indicators in both its second and third objectives, MEDALUS has a contribution to make to the discussions of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, particularly its Annex IV relating to the Mediterranean countries.

The fourth objective was to examine some of the important physical processes operating within ephemeral channels and rivers. This work linked studies made on hillslopes and on river plains. If the number of intense rainfall events is on the increase in the Mediterranean Basin, such channels will play an important part in the control of excessive soil erosion and potential flood damage.

All the papers and reports from the third phase of the MEDALUS are listed in the document and data archive. The more important products to date are:

• Kosmas, C., Kirkby, M., Geeson, N. (Eds), 1999. Manual on key indicators of desertification and mapping environmentally sensitive areas to desertification. European Commission, EUR 18882 (87 pp)

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