The institutional purposes of the Regional Department of Forest in Siciliy, in charge of the pilot action in the frame of the Project for the Region Sicily are oriented to surveillance, control, defense, protection and development of forestry and mountain territory, soil, natural environment and reserves, thanks also to the activity of the Regional Forestry - Brigade, who carries in the Region through the same functions and purposes of the National Forestry - Brigade in Italy and take part also in the Civil Protection actions.
Department competences include planning, execution and realization  of hydraulic and hydro-forestry installations in mountain and hydrographical basin. Department plans actions and manages allotted funds by  Europe, Italian State or Extraregional  Organization.  It is front line in the war against the main natural disaster damages, in particular against  forest  fires and desertification. 

Project's Scientific  Partner: University of Palermo- Agronomic Faculty – ITAF Department.
Scientific Partner of Sicilian Region, the  Division of Hydraulic , in Agronomic – Forest Technologies Department  in University of Palermo is National leader Institution in the field of  erosion soil research. It has produced many specific works and publications in particular about geological environment made of clayey and metamorphic substratum.

Activities carried out in the frame of the Project DesertNet

"Study of erosion processes and identification of guidelines for sustainable use of the territory in highly sensitive areas – monitoring erosion in the pilot area of Sparacia (Agrigento). Study on sensitivity to desertification on the basis of climatic data"
 
The main objectives of the study carried out in the pilot area of Sparacia by the Region Sicily in collaboration with the Faculty of Agronomy of the University of Palermo (Agrigento) have been the following:
1. Validation of the Wishmeier W.H. & Smith D.D. model and calculation of the erodibility coefficient for parcels of various sizes;
2. Measure of erosion at a subparcel scale and determination of the interrill erodibility factor;
3. Estimation of how much the rill and interrill  rates contribute to the total erosion by confronting various soil losses measures at different spatial scales.
An analysis was also done at wide scale by a logic scheme similar to that used for the ESAs: in the climatic caracterization of the whole territory in order to identify sensitive areas, the indicators representing aridity and surface water erosion have been take into consideration by using the  Hargreaves formula and the USLE model - Universal Soil Loss Erosion).
 
Contacts:
Francesco Gendusa – Phone no.:0039 091 6966061 - Fax:0039 091 6966026 - E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Vito Ferro - Phone no.: 0039 091 7028103 - Fax:0039 091 484035 - E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it