Erosion is a major threat to the ecosystemic services provided by soils, especially for nutrient cycling, provision of food, water purification, leading to significant on- and off-site effects that needs to be monitored, studied and prevented. EUROSION will tackle this issue by developing and demonstrating a dynamic soil erosion monitoring system able to continuously and precisely estimate soil erosion across spatial and temporal scales, considering water, wind and tillage effects in agricultural lands. This will be achieved with: (i) the creation of a robust multi-scale monitoring network composed of EUROSION partnership and representatives of complementary monitoring stakeholders, (ii) the elaboration of a monitoring scheme using harmonized monitoring methods allowing to collect up-to-date and reliable data, (iii) interrelated wind-water-tillage-related process-based erosion models capable of quantifying soil erosion from local to EU scale and across time and estimate the impact of management practices. These enhanced knowledge and innovative bricks will lead to the development of a user-friendly interactive and open-access platform for policymakers, researchers and monitoring stakeholders to visualize dynamic maps of erosion and conduct further research. Thus, EUROSION soil erosion monitoring system will deliver reliable estimates and validated indicators, on which the project will take stock to provide policymakers and agricultural land managers with recommendations on best management practices reducing soil erosion, supported by tailored cost-benefit analysis. EUROSION will also enable science-based trade-offs for the development and update of soil-related policies, including the new CAP. The project will run in close collaboration with local stakeholders, EU policymakers, and the JRC, and will be implemented in specific 12 Monitoring Nodes, representing European erosion hot spots and key agricultural areas.

Resource reduction, extreme climatic events and loss of biodiversity in cultivated fields, are having a strong impact on farmers' incomes, subjecting farms to the risk of shutdown and fields abandonment. BIOMEnext proposal aims to optimize, with a multi-actor approach, all resources available along the entire supply chain, in terms of plant genetic potential, effective microbial consortia for plant growth and health, new agro-systems based on the use of controlled grassing and cover cropping. Among the various Mediterranean cultivation systems, tree fruit growing has undergone the greatest technological transformation towards a deep intensification, complete mechanization and a genetic revolution, allowing, on one hand, an increase in production and cost reduction but, on the other one, leading to a very strong increase in resource demand, soil consumption and air-water-soil pollution. A threatening diversity loss of varieties and organisms composing the agro-ecosystems and causing irreversible loss of soil, reduction of organic matter and unacceptable levels of pollution of the air and surrounding environment. As a consequence of these changes, it has become mandatory to re-design the production models, using or enhancing low resource-demanding cultivars and developing new cultivation systems ready to reduce energy and water inputs, favoring cenoses able to increase adaptation, resilience and ability to exploit the environmental resources, including microbiomes, cover crops, agro-pastoral systems, neglected and underutilized species to produce food, to preserve soil fertility, to protect the agro-environment and to enable sustainable and resilient agro-systems to produce under a circular bioeconomy perspective. Olive, the most typical fruit crop of the Mediterranean basin, should represent the model system for studying new cultivation strategies and testing their environmental and economical sustainability to protect against climate constraints and recover from excessive pollution, resource consumption and genetic erosion. The model built within the project, could then be adapted and extended to many other fruit crop species (grape, almond, citrus, etc.). BIOMEnext will put in place the following actions: •Harnessing traditional varieties, wild olives and new bred genotypes to redesign environmentally friendly groves; •Developing new bacterial consortia and mycorrhizal inoculants to promote climate resilient and stress-tolerant plants; •Building new composite eco-friendly crop systems; •Assessing the environmental and socio-economic impact of the proposed innovations and newly developed crop systems; •Involving different stakeholders of the supply chain in order to share the problems to be faced and the technologies to be applied, with an integrated participatory approach. The expected outputs include: •Selection of traditional and newly bred plant genotypes adapted to extreme conditions, stress tolerant and low-resource demanding, with high agronomical value in terms of productivity and product quality; •Development of microbial consortia and biostimulants to assist plant trees to grow under severe environmental conditions, to valorize low-fertile soils and the environmental constraints; •Recovery of traditional farming systems able to reduce resource inputs and endorse the natural resources; •Application of new farming technologies, including remote sensing technologies to reduce water, fertilizers and pesticides; •Increasing crop yield under different soil and climate stress conditions; •Integrating different value chain components into new farming systems; •Application of inclusive approaches and to increase the public acceptance of the new technologies.

The main goal of MONALISA is to identify and promote the expansion of innovative and tailored solutions to prevent and reverse land degradation and desertification (LDD) while showcasing their socio-economic and environmental effectiveness. MONALISA will put in place a transdisciplinary approach to integrate scientific and local knowledge, emerging from newly and established social learning spaces with multi-sector stakeholders and multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary researchers. Work will be carried out in six Mediterranean case studies (CS), encompassing different levels of aridity across five countries (European: Italy, Spain and Greece; and non-European: Tunisia and Palestine). In the CS, the following solutions to prevent and restore LDD will be assessed and scaled-out: (i) innovative grazing systems (e.g., adaptive multi-paddock grazing systems); (ii) microbial-based solutions (e.g., biofertilizers and symbiotic N-fixing rhizobia); (iii) conservation agriculture practices (e.g., cover crops and reduced tillage); (iv) ecological restoration practices (e.g., harvesting and seeding of residual plant materials in protected grasslands, green infrastructures); (v) water harvesting techniques; (vi) treated wastewater reuse in agriculture. One of the main outputs of MONALISA will be a multi-modular practice-oriented Decision Support System, composed of several web-based applications, that will leverage innovative data and technologies, including from remote sensing and Artificial Intelligence. MONALISA will focus on new business opportunities with (and not only for) stakeholders, taking into account cost-benefit and market analysis and the promotion of public and private investments. The main goal will be the promotion and adoption of sustainable and environmentally-friendly solutions for LDD while contributing to support the economic growth of European and Mediterranean drylands.

TERRASAFE is a pioneering initiative envisaging to empower local communities in southern Europe and northern Africa to successfully face the escalating challenges of desertification through the adoption of nature-based, social and technological innovations. TERRASAFE’s vision will be operationalized in 5 pilot areas that share a high vulnerability to desertification but, simultaneously, represent the 4 main types of desertification (vegetation decline, soil degradation, water scarcity, and depopulation) and strongly contrast in socio–cultural-ecological circumstances. This vision is supported by a transdisciplinary consortium, ranging from universities to SMEs commercially exploiting innovations. TERRASAFE’s vision is implemented through a multi-actor approach covering all WPs, in particular by setting up 5 partnerships in the 5 pilot areas. In a co-creation process, these partnerships will then (i) define their visions on building desertification resilience and plan their ensuing TERRASAFE work; (ii) map and analyze past and ongoing desertification, identifying hotspots; (iii) evaluate and demonstrate innovations at these hotspots, comparing them with current and traditional/organic practices; (iv) elaborate policy recommendation for the wider uptake of the TERRASAFE-certified innovations, both within and beyond the pilot areas, taking into account lessons learnt from past and ongoing policies against desertification; (v) share their TERRASAFE’s experience with the other areas, other desertification-prone communities and the general public. The consortium will support the partnerships by providing not only harmonized frameworks for each activity but also advice on adapting these frameworks to their specific needs. Finally, the SMEs will provide a wide offer of innovations that they will tailor towards the respective desertification hotspots, in close collaboration with the partnerships.