ABOUT US

Land degradation and desertification are considered major threats for the present and future of Mediterranean arid and semiarid Agro-Ecosystems. Together with land degradation, climate change threatens the biological systems and the natural resources that sustain agriculture such as water and soil. The REACT4MED proposal consortium includes a multidisciplinary team of ten research institutes and one SME from nine countries. The project will enhance sustainable land and water management to support increased agropastoral productivity, accelerate technological innovation and adaptation, reverse land degradation and improve the livelihoods of Mediterranean communities. In REACT4MED we will rely on ‘living labs’ for stakeholder engagement to increase the capacity of changemakers and develop methods and tools that support participatory and scientific decision-making in a practical manner by bridging bottom–up and top–down approaches in SLWM. We aim to initiate and support large scale restoration actions with measurable impact in terms of area affected, as well as a substantial degree of environmental stewardship and social and societal improvement. To enable and promote public and private investment opportunities we will develop tools for the assessment of restoration potential in terms of environmental and economic cost-effectiveness. To cover the range of conditions that occur in the Mediterranean region, eight pilot areas have been selected where the REACT4MED approach will be experimented and assessed in a real world context. The results from this assessment, as well as lessons learnt from the local restoration actions will be translated to a policy roadmap for upscaling or/and outscaling. REACT4MED will use an active dissemination approach to achieve impact from the local to regional levels and will boost outreach and strengthen institutional capacity by improving access to knowledge for applied innovation in land and water management.

For more information please visit full project website

Period of Implementation

May 1, 2022 - Oct 31, 2025
Total Budget

EUR 2,750,000.00

OUR IMPACT

Goals

REACT4MED aims to enhance Sustainable Land and Water Management to support increased agropastoral productivity, accelerate technological innovation and dissemination, reverse land degradation, and improve the livelihoods of Mediterranean communities. To achieve this, REACT4MED follows two conceptual directions: A top-down approach introduces broad-scale concepts and methods that highlight good, cost-effective practices against land, water, and agro-ecosystem degradation as well as physical vulnerabilities, while a bottom-up, multi-actor approach is used to overcome obstacles, and to support their substantial out-scaling.

Objectives

The specific objectives of REACT4MED towards this strategic goal are to: 1. Capitalize on the scientific and practical knowledge established by past and on-going restoration projects, and critically review sustainable land management practices and approaches (WP2). 2. Identify barriers to apply this volume of knowledge and experience in initiating or sustaining restoration actions and help overcome them at the local scale (WP3). 3. Propose a set of harmonized indicators, including technological, environmental, climate-related, and socio-cultural and economic aspects, that can facilitate broad level assessments (WP2, WP3, WP4, WP5). 4. Develop methodologies and tools that support participatory (WP3) and scientific (WP4) decision-making in a practical manner by bridging bottom-up and top-down approaches in SLWM. 5. Initiate and support large scale restoration actions with measurable impact in terms of area affected, as well as a substantial degree of environmental stewardship (WP5) and societal (WP3) improvement. 6. Enable and promote public and private investment opportunities by developing tools for the assessment of restoration potential in terms of environmental and economic cost-effectiveness (WP4, WP5). 7. Translate assessment and tool results, as well as lessons learnt from the local restoration actions to a policy roadmap for upscaling or/and outscaling SLWM (WP6). 8. Communicate and disseminate results to a wide range of audiences and stakeholders, and conduct targeted outreach activities to stimulate uptake of the good practices identified and innovations implemented (WP7).

NEWS & EVENTS

Tweets