Land degradation is a global problem which involves different climatic, soil, vegetation, agricultural and population conditions. Originally attributed to the most arid regions of the world, desertification risk has been rapidly increased also in temperate regions. In Mediterranean Europe, high...

Soil sealing may be considered as a negative externality of the economic growth, because the sealed soil loses several of its ecological functions. The analysis of land cover changes carried out by traditional data sources, allows only a relatively rough estimation of soil sealing, since it is a...