MEDALUS Model Evolutions and Prospects Case Study Sicily

Desertification is defined as land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities. The desertification process in the world affects around 200 countries and 2 billion people. It has become a growing threat in the EU due to prolonged drought periods and increasing aridity. The Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use (MEDALUS) method, identify the environmentally sensitive areas (ESAs) through the application of biophysical and socio – economic indicators and relative index (ESAI). The MEDALUS has some limitations, namely the impossibility of reconducting the ESAI results to a single and comparable value, and the need to recalibrate the indices when moving from a regional scale to a local scale. The Environmentally Sensitive Index Patch (ESPI) has been developed to overcome the aforementioned barriers. The ESPI index assigns numerical values to ESAI results on a scale of 0−100. In the present paper, we discuss an experimental application of the MEDALUS method on a local scale and the outcome of the experimentation of the ESPI calculated at different territorial scales. The study was carried out in the Sicily Region. Preliminary results indicate that the ESPI index can be used at all scales on the ESAI and its four constituent qualities. Also, the authors started a critical review of the thematic layers to be adopted for the basin scales.