The Emergence of a Governance Landscape for Saline Agriculture in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa

Katarzyna (Kate) Negacz*, Pim van Tongeren, Lucia Ferone, Federico Martellozzo, Filippo Randelli

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

52 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Salinization is one of the main challenges of contemporary agriculture affecting food security and sustainability. Climate change with more persistent droughts, floods and sea-level rise is expected to increase this challenge, making it one of the most common land degradation processes. At the same time, an increasingly complex institutional landscape has emerged across multiple issue areas of global environmental governance related to salinization. This can be seen in a myriad of public, private, and hybrid actors coming together by creating initiatives to address the issue of growing salinization through saline agriculture. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to characterize the development of a governance landscape of cooperative initiatives for saline agriculture in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, and to discuss how to harness their potential and orchestrate their efforts. The preliminary findings suggest that the fragmented landscape of initiatives is predominated by public actors and research institutions. This potentially hampers benefit sharing and upscaling efforts. Operational activities are most frequently the governance function, followed by information and networking efforts thereafter. Thematically, initiatives focus on the development of new crop varieties and water and soil management practices. Linkages to the Sustainable Development Goals suggest saline agriculture is connected to policy debates on sustainable food systems, climate change, water security, and land degradation.
Original languageEnglish
Article number33
Pages (from-to)1-4
Number of pages4
JournalEnvironmental Sciences Proceedings
Volume16
Issue number1
Early online date16 Jun 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022
Event2nd International Laayoune Forum on Biosaline Agriculture - Laayoune, Morocco
Duration: 14 Jun 202216 Jun 2022
https://lafoba2.sciforum.net/

Bibliographical note

This article belongs to the Proceedings of The 2nd International Laayoune Forum on Biosaline Agriculture

Keywords

  • Salinization
  • Governance
  • International cooperative initiatives
  • Policy
  • Saline agriculture

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The Emergence of a Governance Landscape for Saline Agriculture in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this