Sod seeding and soil erosion in a semi-arid Meditrerranean environment of South of Italy

Experimental plots equipped with devices to measure runoff and soil erosion were established since 1996 in a Sicilian hilly area subjected to water erosion (Foti et al., 2000). Researches showed that cropping systems with perennial crops resulted to be suitable in minimizing soil erosion and surface runoff while cropping systems with annual crops did not (Foti et al., 2001, Cosentino et al., 2004). Since 2004 the efficiency of sod seeding technique in controlling soil erosion in slopes subjected to water erosion have been studied on the above mentioned experimental plots (Cosentino et al., 2006)