Adaptive land management to fight land degradation in Mediterranean agroforestry pastoral areas

Healthy soils are fundamental to support ecosystem functions and productivity and represent an adaptive fundamental condition to face climatic change extremes, like in Southern Mediterranean often characterized by land degradation, soil erosion and desertification risk. As part of the project LIFE16 CCA/IT/000011 Desert Adapt, since 2018 we have been working on agroforestry pastoral areas of Portugal to test more adaptive strategies, including changes in grazing cycles which can allow a better regeneration of the grass cover, higher protection of the soil and improvement of the overall soil functions that support pasture productivity. We present the first data set of soil monitoring from spring 2022 and we combine the evaluation of soil amelioration with a full integrated management view of the improved grazed system to underline the multiple beneficial environmental effects of soil protection within and beyond the soil system.