Europe's most arid country battles desertification

When the world's paramount experts on global warming gather in Spain next week, they will not have to travel far to witness the impact of rising temperatures.
The meeting starting Monday of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will take place in the Mediterranean port city of Valencia, in the heart of a coastal belt which is cowering at the prospect of desertification.
"Many people think desertification affects only Africa, Asia or Latin America," Juan Sanchez, a department head at the Centre for Research on Desertification (CIDE) near Valencia. "But we are also at risk."
Most of Spain suffers dry spells but in key regions aridity has become chronic, driven by human development and changing rainfall patterns -- and worse is likely to come.
Around one-seventh of Spain is at high risk of desertification, according to CIDE's estimates.
Those areas most at risk are the Canary Islands, where 57 percent of the territory is threatened, and two eastern provinces on the Spanish mainland, Valencia (29 percent) and Murcia (37 percent).
The United Nations estimates that six percent of the territory of Spain, the most arid country in Europe, has already been irreversibly damaged. The environmental group Greenpeace believes Spain's climate has begun to "Africanise".
Spain is not alone in this problem, for much of the northern Mediterranean rim faces worsening water stress.
In February, the European Environment Agency (EEA) predicted that by century's end, temperatures in Europe would rise by between 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and 6.2 C (11.16 F), with eastern and southern Europe facing increases at the higher end of the range.
It singled out southern Spain, along with southern Italy, Greece and Turkey as regions where the "recharge season" of replenishing aquifers with fresh rainfall would shorten dramatically, reducing water for farms, cities and hydropower plants.
The problem is being worsened by water-thirsty businesses such as tourism, golf courses and farm irrigation, by pollution and by roads and buildings which drain water away rather than let the precious substance soak into the soil.
"The Mediterranean is especially vulnerable and faces the threat of large-scale migration and the disruption of local economies," said Antonio Navarra, of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology.
"We are looking at major impacts that could put tremendous stress on agriculture, water management, energy production and tourism."
In April, the IPCC warned that availability of fresh water in badly-hit Mediterranean countries could fall by as much as a third by 2100.
In Sanchez's research centre, in mountains 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Valencia, a dozen scientists have been studying desertification since 1996 to try and halt the advance.
A big focus of their research is local soil erosion.
The region suffers devastating fires in the summer and is then drenched for several days every autumn by torrential rains. Another problem is rising salt levels, caused by irrigation.
"If we continue to destroy forests through fire and the salinisation continues, a large part of the soil in the region could be damaged within 40 years," said Sanchez.
Climate change is "linked to desertification in a lot of ways," he said. "In 25 to 50 years, if we do not stop the process of climate change, temperatures will rise, torrential rains will be more intense and erosion will increase."
The IPCC's five-day conference is to seal a "synthesis report" of a massive three-volume assessment, issued this year, that spelled out current knowledge about global warming, its likely impact and the estimated costs of dealing with it.