Mediterranean badlands: Their driving processes and climate change futures

This article also appears in: 8th International Symposium on Gully erosion Special Issue.
Badlands are landforms that occur all over the World. In the Mediterranean region, badlands are found in both dry (arid and semi‐arid) and wet (subhumid and humid) environments, and are characterized by complex hydro‐geomorphological dynamics, high intense erosion processes and extreme sediment yield. Understanding the impact of Global Change is key to predict the on‐site and off‐site effects on badland dynamics, particularly its consequences on bedrock weathering, on sediment yield and delivery and on plant colonization. Here, conducting a systematic literature review, we analyzed an extensive database and identified the main climate‐drivers affecting the hydro‐geomorphological dynamics in Mediterranean badlands (based on non‐metric multidimensional scaling and structural equation modeling analysis). Later, we examined the main impacts expected from climate change forecasting in the near future, and we explored the interactions between badlands response to climate variation. In Mediterranean badlands, weathering processes are mainly related to wetting–drying cycles and freeze–thaw cycles in dry and wet badlands, respectively. In both environments, rainfall amount appears as the main driver for runoff response, and rainfall amount and rainfall intensity for erosion dynamics. Future climate scenarios forecast a decrease in annual rainfall, number of rainfall events and frost days, and in soil moisture, and an increase in rainfall intensity. These changes will have direct hydro‐geomorphological implications with direct and indirect effects on badland dynamics. This may result in a decrease in annual runoff in dry badlands, but the occurrence of more frequent extreme events would increase soil erosion and could negatively affect biological soil crust. In wet badlands, weathering and erosion processes may decrease, and a stabilization of the slopes, with consequently improved vegetation growth, may be expected. In addition, the forecasted changes must be taken into account, especially considering the possible off‐site effects of these extreme environments.
This work was funded by the H2020‐MSCA‐IF‐2018 program (Marie Sklodowska‐Curie Actions) of the European Union under REA grant agreement, number 834329‐SEDILAND, the REBIOARID (RTI2018‐101921‐B‐I00) and MANMOUNT (PID2019‐105983RB‐100/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) projects funded by the Spanish National Plan for Research (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación) and the European Union ERDF funds and the RH2O‐ARID project (P18‐RT‐5130) funded by Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucía and the European Union ERDF funds. ERC and SC are supported by a HIPATIA‐UAL postdoctoral fellowship funded by the University of Almeria.