Using land productivity monitoring tools tools, farmers can see whether poor yields are due to climate stress or suboptimal land management. For governments, it can guide policy initiatives.
Read our blog to find out more: buff.ly/xklImx3
#soilscience
The UNCCD recommends analysing long-term data using long-term metrics, overall producing a map of land health.
This monitoring is one of the key tools for tracking and combating desertification.
In our blog, we explain what land productivity is and how trends over time are monitored.
Land productivity is a concept that explains how healthy land is - is it able to produce biomass, such as forests, grasslands, or crops. When land becomes less productive, it can be a sign that desertification is happening.
But how do we assess whether productivity is declining?
#desertification
TERRASAFE works with communities in five sites across Europe & N Africa to test innovations tackling desertification. Follow us on our journey of improving soil health & food security through our newsletter. Click on the link below or use the QR code & scroll down.
#soilscience
terrasafe.eu
Farmer José Méndez, from Murcia, Spain, talks about how creating a network of small basins in the soil can help to hold excess water on the land, benefitting water management and soil moisture.
#soilhealth
Our team in Cyprus have been busy setting up field experiments with ecochar - a soil restructuring agent and only needs to be applied once. Here, we see them applying the ecochar, installing soil moisture sensors and beginning the process of crop monitoring.
#desertification #soilscience
In this blog, Rosanna Salvia and Giovanni Quaranta look at different strategies to revive rural economies and landscapes.
#soilscience #desertification
buff.ly/qYKgUbx
While improving soils and forests are important to reversing desertification, we must understand and tackle the social aspects of landscape decline. We need solutions to encourage people to stay on the land and build thriving rural communities.
Image of a farmhouse behind a field, with text overlayed.
Across Mediterranean countries we are seeing an exodus of people from rural areas in search of better opportunities.
As rural communities depopulate, we lose knowledge to sustain local agricultural economies. The land becomes barren and lifeless. And, as a result, food security becomes an issue.
To ensure change happens in agriculture, we need to team up with other organisations and programmes.
That's why TERRASAFE has joined the AgroTech Hub Cluster Group - to connect with like-minded #HorizonEU projects.
Come to AgroTech's first webinar: www.f6s.com/agrotech-hub...
#soilscience
🎴 Depopulation as a driver of #desertification with the loss of these people, we also lose knowledge of how to sustain vibrant agricultural landscapes.
Read these policy recommendations by @desertificationeu.bsky.social 👇
So today, on International Women’s Day, we celebrate their contribution to creating context-specific innovative solutions to climate change-induced desertification.
You can find about all these great researchers and scientists, and what they do for TERRASAFE, here: terrasafe.eu/who-we-are/
This figure alone shows the central role that land rights for women could play in tackling desertification.
TERRASAFE is a truly gender representative programme, with women leading and working across the academic and implementation teams.
According to a 2024 report by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, women produce up to 80% of the food in developing countries, but own less than 20% of the land globally. This affects their ability to prepare for droughts as well as apply innovations to combat desertification.
Our innovation testing is underway in the Kebili (Tunisia) pilot area with farmers.
In Tunisia we are implementing three innovations: a wood-based gel product that stores water (Agrobiogel), an artificial soil product (CETIM) and a compost production system from Isotech.
#desertification
Follow us or sign up to our newsletter @ terrasafe.eu to learn how impactful they are.
#desertification #horizoneu
People involved in this project believe it will enhance education, promote environmental awareness and create a sense of togetherness.
TERRASAFE is dedicated to finding real, cost-effective and sustainable solutions to desertification through a variety of innovations.
We selected Zero Kilometre because it builds on agricultural resources, existing school facilities, and local interest in sustainable food practices. It involves schools, municipal administrations, families, local farmers & food producers, & associations promoting sustainability & education.
Amenities that bring people together are critical. So the second project that we are testing in Italy is the Zero Kilometre school canteen.
In Italy, TERRASAFE chose to focus on the role of community among the factors driving desertification in Italy. How could we encourage more cohesive and thriving rural areas, resisting trends towards land abandonment and population decline?
The role of rural community in soil health and food systems is as important as finding innovative technical solutions. Why? Because thriving communities take care of the land as well as proving for resilient food systems. In some cases, it is the most important factor in desertification.
One of our pilot areas is Italy, where physical pressures of desertification have been exacerbated by a decline in populations and land abandonment. We have chosen therefore to focus on community.
Read more here buff.ly/00jqMgM
What does desertification feel like to those coping with it? Spanish farmers José and Juan work with TERRASAFE researchers to implement innovations to combat desertification, and here they talk about what's happening to the landscape as desertification accelerates.
#desertification #climatechange
Carob is the new future-food - nutritious, tasty and, because it can survive on just 250 millimetres of rainfall per year, a crop than can be grown in dryland areas.
Head over to our blog to read all about this new superfood 🍪 terrasafe.eu/2026/01/30/c...
#desertification #superfoods #farming
The floods in Valencia, Spain in 2024 showed that drought and floods come together as #climatechange impacts. In Murcia, Spain, José Méndez has developed a tool to create dips in the earth that can help prevent run-off.
#desertification #EUHorizon
José and Juan are two of the farmers working with TERRASAFE researchers on strategies to combat desertification. In this video, they talk about why it's so important to work with others to learn, and what saving the soil means to them and future generations.
#desertification #soilscience
Delivering meaningful change to combat soil degradation requires a transdisciplinary approach - working across research disciplines and through non-academic ideas and people.
This briefing note beings together lessons from recent EU-funded projects.
buff.ly/st0hHTv
Our latest blog, written by placement student Andrew Arkle, looks at three initiatives to reverse dertification - the Great Green Wall (Africa), the Loess Plateau (China), and Ningxia Hui (China).
buff.ly/9IpAI7y
#soilscience #innovation #horizoneurope
Call for abstracts! Deadline 15th Jan - ‘Innovations to assess, combat and prevent land degradation and desertification’
We are convening a session at the EGU26 Assembly in Vienna, 3-8 May 2026, and we'd love to receive proposals for contributions.
See more details on LinkedIn: buff.ly/z72pA9g
We’re proud to tell you about ISOTECH’s Circular Compost Scheme in Cyrpus, whose symbiotic green waste management system turns garden and pruning waste into high-quality compost.
Local farmers are co-owners, they bring in green waste and take back compost for free.
#TERRASAFE #HorizonEU
