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All the countries facing the Mediterranean Sea are involved, with varying degree and range, in desertification defined by UNEP ( 1992) as "land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry subhumid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities". Adaptation and mitigation measures should be thus adopted in order to avoid phenomena due to degradation and desertification. The aim of this paper is to try to describe environmentally sensitive areas to desertification, by using standard methodologies able. to define key indicators to evaluate degradation processes in Mediterranean environments.

These key indicators can be grouped into four categories: quality of soil, climate, vegetation and management. The studied area( Calabria region, Italy) proved to be characterised by different categories on the basis of its degree of sensibility. The direct visualization of the phenomenon can be obtained through the development of maps of different quality indexes and through data input in a GIS (Geographic Information System). This choice is due to the following reason: in decision-making process for sustainable soil development, ecological processes interact with economic and social factors difficult to evaluate and quantift in this context. Through GIS, however, the unitary representation of all the variables can be obtained through quantitative values to be given to each of them according to the weight that each has with respect to the others. The described method, based on both general and local definition of environmental processes, could thus be a. helpful tool in planning intervention aimed at fighting desertification in those areas mostly affected by this phenomenon.