Zero Net Land Degradation in Italy: The role of socioeconomic and agro-forest factors

In 2012, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification has launched a policy strategy called 'Zero Net Land Degradation' (ZNLD), which aims to prevent the degradation of productive land and restore already degraded land. In Europe, and especially in Mediterranean Europe, land degradation is a complex phenomenon affecting both depopulated, marginal agro-forest regions and affluent agricultural areas. In an effort to develop a ZNLD strategy in Italy we identified the socioeconomic variables associated with environmental conditions leading to a long-term (1960-2010) reduction in land sensitivity to degradation. Our results show an increase in ZNLD areas in the last ten years. Rural municipalities classified at ZNLD showed an economy based on services, an agriculture sector oriented towards quality productions and more sustainable cultivation practices, a balanced population structure and the prevalence of a mixed farmland/woodland land-use structure. These results may inform a country-scale ZNLD strategy targeting complex human-natural degradation processes in ecologically-fragile Mediterranean areas. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.