Catchment hydrology and soil degradation following farmland abandonment. A comparison between different land management scenarios

Abstract

[Abstract:] Farmland abandonment has been one of the major changes in many Mediterranean mountainous areas throughout the 20th century. Abandoned areas are often considered of marginal interest from an economic perspective; however, they are essential from an environmental and societal point of view as they provide important ecosystem services, such as water supply, soil and biomass, carbon storage, or recreational services. Large areas of former agricultural land have undergone natural revegetation. In other cases, extensive afforestation programs have been conducted to reduce land degradation following farmland abandonment. On terraced landscapes, the lack of maintenance may cause failures in the terrace risers, resulting in new sediment sources on the hillslopes. The heterogeneity of landscapes present in mountainous regions of the Mediterranean increases the uncertainty in forecasting changes in water resources and soil conservation after farmland abandonment: is the hydrology of these revegetated areas comparable to that of a natural forest? What are the off-site effects of the increasing soil degradation in abandoned terraced landscapes?