SOIL CONSERVATION AND COMBATTING DESERTIFICATION

The discipline aims to provide students with the agronomic and environmental fknowledge of ecosystems for soil conservation and combating desertification. Part of the course is aimed at providing agronomic skills to identify and resolve problems relating to soil preservation and to combat desertification in the context of environment and the landscape safeguard, with a focus on Mediterranean-type ecosystems.

* Principles and basic concepts of agronomy and agroecology; Overview on the Mediterranean environment characteristics and the calculation of rainfall probabilities
* Soil (origin, texture, structure, chemical and biological characteristics; hydrological, evapotranspiration constant), soil sampling
* The role of organic matter in soil; Role of microorganisms for the conservation and soil fertility (es. nitrogen-fixing symbionts and mycorrhizal fungi)
* Desertification: process, risk assessment and fighting in the Mediterranean environment; Loss of soil fertility: erosion; compaction; Salinisation and sodification.
* Conservation Agriculture (agriculture blue) conservative tillage (seeding, minimum tillage, Vallerani System, etc.)
* Agronomic techniques of soil conservation (windbreaks, mulch, cover crops) Overview on reforestation; Overview on agricultural water footprint ; Terracing and buffer strips
Outline of regional agri-environmental measures
Reuse of treated wastewater and water harvesting.
Agronomic management : meadows; legumes; Alfalfa, vetch; lolium spp., Festuca arundinacea, Dactylis glomerata.
natural technology to contrast erosion and desertification as Prati armati and Hedges.

1) Lesson notes.

2) Giardini L. l’Agronomia per conservare il futuro. Pàtron Editore, Bologna;