Desertification as a socio-eco-technical process in a mediterranean hotspot: how Sicilian farmers perceive and address desertification

Sicily, a Mediterranean climate change hotspot, experiences record-breaking extremes in recent years: the highest temperatures in Europe, prolonged droughts, seasonally devastated by wildfires, water crises, drying lakes and crop failure. It is among the European regions most exposed to desertification risk, with regional assessments reporting large shares of land in “critical” or “fragile” condition. In cereal-based arable systems, biophysical climate stressors (reduced rainfall, heat extremes) intersect with anthropogenic drivers (e.g. monoculture, intensive tillage, agrochemical dependence), yet farmers’ perceptions and decision-making remain under-integrated into diagnosis and response. Models and policies privilege remotely sensed and biophysical indicators, underrepresenting socio-economic histories, governance influence, and emic understanding of soil health. Preliminary fieldwork suggests farmers often conflate desertification with drought and ignore other factors, potentially weakening management responses. This project conceptualizes desertification as a coupled social–ecological–technical process (macro level); investigates it in terms of farmers’ understanding (meso); and looks at actual bio-physical soil measurements (micro).