Objective To understand the desertification process in the Mediterraneanmountains, under various natural and human conditions, and todeliver guidelines for a rational management of such areas,including prevention, monitoring and appropriate policies forsustainable development.The project will be a combination of local-scale and regional-scale investigations. The general technical approach is based ona progressive integration of parallel investigations.At the local-scale: a series of case studies in selectedmountainous pilot-zones of different countries (Greece, Italy,France, Spain), in order to study the phenomenon, identifycriteria, and to develop guidelines at a local-scale, but alsogive evidence of the diversity, the similarities anddissimilarities among the study areas.At the regional scale: a limited number of generalinvestigations, in order to include the local case-studies in aconsistent overview, extrapolate findings, as well as possibleapplication and recommendations (from the local) to theregional-scale.The methodological frame common to all pilot-zones includes: 1)the integration of three major disciplinary fields, relation tosocial sciences, terrestrial and aquatic ecology, 2) the choiceoftest-areas, within the range of diversity offered by each pilot-zone, 3) the quantification and mapping of as much as possiblerelevant data, from the various disciplines, and theircompilation into GIS, 4) the implementation of amulti-disciplinarywork plan through a succession of four major stages: extractionof available knowledge from existing records, completion of thisinformation with questionnaires and field campaigns, focusingdetailed investigation from various disciplines on the selectedtest-areas, multi-varied analyses of data, translation of resultsinto potential indices of desertification, scenarios andconceptual models of the desertification processes.Methodology at the regional-scale will consist in a series ofinvestigations ranging from sensitivity studies to climatechange, through the use of remote sensing techniques and macro-economic scenarios, to historical botanical reviews .Integration of local case-studies into a regional dimension willconcern syntheses and comparative studies between the differentpilot-zones and the integration of data and findings from thelocal-scale into the various regional approaches. Fields of science natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyengineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringremote sensingnatural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changessocial sciences Programme(s) FP3-ENV 1C - Specific research and technological development programme (EEC) in the field of the environment, 1990-1994 Topic(s) 0403 - Desertification in the Mediterranean area Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinator International Centre for Alpine Environments Address Riventosa 20250 Corte France See on map EU contribution € 0,00 Participants (7) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Greece EU contribution € 0,00 Address University campus 54006 Thessaloniki See on map Casa Pastureccia Riventosa France EU contribution € 0,00 Address 20250 Corte See on map Centre d'Activités Régionales du Planbleu France EU contribution € 0,00 Address Place sophie lafitte sophia antipolis 06560 Valbonne See on map Géographie Spatiale Appliquée au Contrôle de l'Environnement France EU contribution € 0,00 Address Savoie technolac 73374 Le bourget-du-lac See on map UNIVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA Spain EU contribution € 0,00 Address 1095,avda. reina mercedes, 6 41080 Sevilla See on map UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DELLA BASILICATA Italy EU contribution € 0,00 Address Via nazario sauro 85 85100 Potenza See on map Università degli Studi della Calabria Italy EU contribution € 0,00 Address Via brodolini centro rende 87036 Commenda di rende cosenza See on map