Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 1.2
Percentage of mountainous land within Mediterranean countries (Regato and
Salman, 2008)
Percent of mountainous area within a country
Mediterranean countries
0-10
10-25
25-50
50-75
75-100
Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy,
Lebanon, Macedonia, Montenegro
Albania, Greece, Morocco, Serbia, Slovenia,
Turkey, Palestinian Territories
Croatia, Cyprus, Israel, Portugal, Spain
Algeria, France, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia
Egypt, Libya, Malta
slopes, usually displaying distinct variations in climate and associated biological
phenomena from its base to its summit.' According to this definition an attempt to
answer the question how large is the mountain area globally came up with the figure
of 24.3% of total land area. The figure excludes the major plateau areas, and all land
area outside Antarctica (Kapos
et al.,
2000). Mediterranean mountains cover some
1.7 million km
2
, equivalent to 21% of the combined surface area of all the countries
concerned, and are home to 66 million people, representing 16% of the region's
total population. Mountains occupy more than 50% of land in many Mediterranean
countries (Table 1.2), seven of which are among the top 20 mountainous countries in
the world. Morocco is an example of such country with a high percentage of moun-
tainous land, where four major mountain ranges - the Rif, the Middle Atlas, the
High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas - occupy 15% of its territory (Radford
et al.,
2011)
The delineation of the Mediterranean mountains is a more complex issue since it
is directly related to the delineation of the Mediterranean area itself, which has
been the topic of debate for decades. For the latter the criteria used have been
floristic, climatic or bioclimatic (see Blondel
et al.,
2010). In a recent attempt at
an environmental classification for the whole of Europe (Metzger
et al.,
2005),
Mediterranean mountains were recognized as separate entities influenced by both
the Mediterranean zone they are situated in, and a distinct mountain climate. The
class 'Mediterranean mountains' encompasses low and medium mountains in the
northern part of the basin and high mountains in the southern part. As Blondel
et al.
(2010) state, 'there is no satisfactory answer to the question of what is a “Mediter-
ranean mountain”, as compared to a mountain range simply marking a regional
boundary.' Taking into account the various delineations and classification schemes
applied in the Mediterranean Basin, we broadly distinguish three mountain cate-
gories in this topic from the heart to the periphery of the basin:
Mountains at the very heart of the Mediterranean either due to their geographi-
cal position or their moderate altitude, including the Sierra Nevada, Cyrenaica,
mountains of the Peloponnese and those on the islands of Sicily, Corsica, Crete
and Cyprus.
