The Project LIFE20 PRE/IT/000007 ”NewLIFE4Drylands” is co-financed by the European Union Life Financial Instrument. The HSPN is a partner in this 3- year LIFE project, aiming to monitor the application, scalability and replication of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for restoration of degraded and desertified drylands. The project will provide, by using Remote Sensing techniques, a framework and a protocol for: identifying dryland characteristics; identifying sustainable solutions that could be successfully implemented in degraded drylands, e.g. to improve vegetation cover and productivity in areas vulnerable to ongoing desertification; mid- and long-term monitoring of interventions in desertified lands, to better evaluate restoration effectiveness and improve sustainable soil management. The NBS protocol will be based on high resolution Earth Observation data and Remote Sensing methodologies, compensating for the lack of long-term, reliable and homogeneous local information, and providing a clear, specific and cost free assessment of restoration processes, useful for further decision-making.
Expected outputs include: a conceptual framework for achieving land degradation neutrality and combating desertification trough NBS; a monitoring assessment framework; a restoration protocol based on NBS; a mid- and long-term monitoring model base on Remote Sensing; a monitoring report on 4 restored areas in Spain, Italy and Greece; a comparison of different grassland restoration techniques in Alta Murgia National Park; a Restoration Plan to implement NBS for Asterousia Mts, Greece and Alta Murgia, Italy. Other partners are CNR-IIA (Coordinating beneficiary-Italy), ISPRA, Univesrsity of Sapienza-DEB and CNR-IBE (Italy), CREAF (Spain) and University of Crete (Greece).
For more information visit the project website
