CREAF science aims to remedy growing desertification

If climate change is going to make it harder for us to produce food because it degrades our land, we will need to get to work on it as soon as possible. We cannot afford to lose food sovereignty, nor what losing soil quality means for rural development.

To do this, we will need to keep our land fertile, protect it so that it does not degrade to the point of no return, and do so in a territory where three-quarters are already at risk of desertification . The aridity we are experiencing with climate change, poorly distributed rainfall, fires, and human action, have left soils on the peninsula that are approaching the abyss of desertification .

This is the challenge, and CREAF has been working on this for some years now thanks to projects such as NewLife4DryLands and the new ongoing MONALISA project, two initiatives that in addition to being relevant for the future of our territory, are relevant for CREAF, because they unite two research groups in a shared mission: to prevent and reverse the degradation of arid or semi-arid land in the Mediterranean area . They combine the expertise of the research groups Protecsòls , specialized in the restoration of degraded areas, and Grumets , dedicated to environmental remote sensing.

Thanks to the first project, NewLife4DryLands , a protocol was defined to identify, intervene and monitor degraded lands . To do this, a satellite monitoring tool was designed that allowed us to see the evolution of degraded areas and a decision-making support tool was also created that guides managers when choosing the best nature-based solution according to the degradation situation of the land they want to recover.

This is the starting point of the MONALISA project, heir to the NewLife4DryLands, which takes over with the aim of implementing nature-based solutions that allow reversing land degradation and serving as inspiration for other territories. To do this, the project works in six case studies where there are already previous initiatives and local actors involved, willing to implement these profound changes side by side with scientific partners. The territories chosen have been Turkey, Palestine, Crete, Spain (Córdoba), and Italy (Bari and Sardinia).

Each of the selected sites works on a specific challenge and local actors and scientific partners analyze the current situation, the practices that have been carried out there, look at the needs and co-design innovations that can respond to them. CREAF leads all the co-creation processes and also coordinates the scientific partners in each area. It also brings a specific case study, in Los Pedroches (Córdoba, Spain).

The chosen case studies include both agricultural areas and natural spaces, and the nature-based solutions that are valued in each case are part of one of these themes:

• Conservation agriculture solutions: promote soil health and agricultural biodiversity through practices such as direct seeding or cover crops.
• Organic fertilizers: they use natural materials such as compost or manure to nourish the soil and crops, closing nutrient cycles and avoiding pollution.
• Regenerative practices: restore the ecological functionality of agricultural ecosystems through rotations, plant covers and livestock integration, increasing the soil's capacity to capture carbon.
• Livestock control and management solutions to avoid overgrazing: they regulate livestock pressure to allow natural regeneration of vegetation and improve soil and water quality.

Of the 6 cases, CREAF coordinates the case study of Córdoba, where work was already done with the Grupo de Desarrollo Rural Adroches in the context of the iCisk project to develop a Climate Service . This service was developed based on the climate, rainfall and groundwater models that the Complutense University of Madrid had. Based on these models, and feeding them with future prediction models, a service was created that allows you to consult, at the plot scale, climate forecasts and optimally adapt irrigation and crop systems.

Now, with MONALISA, they want to work on a second service, but in this case a Soil Service, which will allow them to improve the agricultural practices carried out in the pastures and olive plantations of the area. “The current photo of the Cordoba pastures shows us a system that has no future, where the already aged oak trees cannot withstand the new climatic conditions, drought, pests and fungi”, says Domingo. To try to reverse this situation, the project proposes to regenerate them by direct sowing of acorns, using systems that protect them from livestock - which tend to eat the shoots, preventing natural regeneration - and that, at the same time, guarantee them a water supply during the first summers when the tree is still a fragile sapling. “The soil in this area is very sandy, does not retain much water and is rather acidic, so natural regeneration is complicated without external support”, he concludes.

The innovation, in this case, lies above all in the model of systems that will be used. On the one hand, the Cocoon system will be tested, but in the version 2.0, which has improvements that make it more adapted to the arid Mediterranean system. A similar model will also be tested but created in the territory and inspired by water tubs. A doughnut-shaped container, made of pottery, that is filled with water and buried with the acorn planted in the center. That water gradually waters the acorn for up to 60 days during the summer, ensuring the survival of those two months, the most complex for the seedling. The testing will take place this autumn where 1000 acorns from the trees on the farm itself will be planted in 90 different places and their conditions will be monitored with the installation of humidity and temperature sensors in the soil.

In addition to regenerating the pasture with new acorns, the project also aims to improve livestock management to avoid overgrazing and work on managing olive trees. To do this, cows on a farm have been monitored with GPS collars, to analyze their movements, grazing, etc., allowing positioning maps to identify the most frequented areas and with satellite data to support the farmer in deciding on a more conscious rotation.

On the other hand, work is being done on better management of olive fields, where measures that can be positive for the soils and prevent them from degrading will be studied: the application of pruning residues to the soil, green roofs, no-till or the use of cereal crops to make compost or biochar, also taking advantage of the olive residue, the pits.

At the local level, the objective is clear: to test these innovations on the ground and implement them in other places if they work. But what will MONALISA do at the European level? At the European level, it is planned to build a framework where advice and monitoring of desertification risks can be offered using satellite technologies. “This is currently being done with outdated indicators or very old tools that we want to update with the project,” explains Cristina Domingo, principal investigator of the project at CREAF. Thanks to the results of NewLife4DryLands, protocols and cartography will be able to be made that will support the Monalisa's European Soil Observatory .