Sicily, situated in the Mediterranean, a climate change hotspot, experiences desertification due to climate change and unsustainable land/water management. This impacts agriculture, and local economies, and leads to socio-cultural consequences, including migration, land abandonment and loss of landscape cultural value. However, while doing so, desertification also prompts the adaptation of agricultural practices and the development of environmental local knowledge. The project adopts a transdisciplinary lens and aims to investigate how new Communities of Practices (CoPs), in response to these environmental-climate challenges and in contrast to conventional unsustainable agricultural practices, have emerged on the island. To date, there has been no analysis of their ability to blend modern technologies, local expertise and traditional knowledge with new environmental sensitivity.

PhD Giorgia Giudice