Some guidelines for monitoring desertification of Mediterranean drylands on the basis of plant water status: Methodological problems and results from the DEMOS project

Abstract

Drought stress can be considered as a dominant factor contributing to degradation of Mediterranean drylands. Therefore, there is a strong need to monitoring the level of water stress suffered by vegetation in the view of relating it to desertification risk of selected areas. In the present paper, some techniques for measuring and quantifying plant water stress are briefly reviewed and the advantages of using the pressure chamber technique to measure leaf water potential (Ψ_L) are highlighted. A new index (water stress impact on vegetation (WSIV)), based on the integral of the diurnal changes of Ψ_L, is proposed and its effectiveness for quantifying the amount of water stress suffered by vegetation is discussed on the basis of measurements performed in degraded areas of Turkey and Lebanon. The usefulness of WSIV as an ecophysiological tool for assessing the desertification risk of Mediterranean drylands is also discussed.

Citation

Salleo, S. and Nardini, A. (2003), "Some guidelines for monitoring desertification of Mediterranean drylands on the basis of plant water status: Methodological problems and results from the DEMOS project", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 39-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/14777830310460379