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This is an indicator-based approach, adapted specifically to the European arid Mediterranean, to assess environmental quality and help decision-makers combat desertification and its consequences on natural resource functioning. The approach was applied at municipality level (twelve municipalities) in Tabernas (Almeria, Southeast Spain), a representative area of the Mediterranean region, where extreme environmental conditions and land use pattern changes over the last decades have led to increased risk of desertification.

The usefulness of dealing with municipalities is that these are the basic planning and management units in Spain at which local decisions are taken. Application of a Pressure-State-Response framework of indicators has allowed the identification of the main pressures affecting the municipalities of the study area and understanding of how these pressures are affecting environmental quality, here referred to as the degree of naturalness, that is, the better the pristine nature of an area is preserved the higher the quality, and the capacity of natural resources to function as a source of materials, sink and support for human activities. This sets a basis for decision-makers to implement, evaluate, and monitor environmental policies, to combat desertification.