Inventory and evaluation of silvopastoral systems in the Vertiscos municipality of Lagadas county, Thessaloniki Greece

Silvopastoral systems are a traditional and sustainable land use system in Greece and the Mediterranean region in general. So far there has been no detailed survey system to map and evaluate them. The aim of this paper was to develop a methodology for inventorying and assessing silvopastoral systems in the Vertiskos municipality of the Lagadas county in Greece. At first, a procedure was applied to map the land use/cover types of the area by means of the Geographic Information Systems that involved digital processing of satellite data (Google Earth) and forest orthophotomaps. Furthermore, field work was done for evaluating silvopastoral systems by using 15 indicators of rangeland health. They were found 13 silvopastoral systems occupying 17% of the total area, while the assessment of rangeland health showed that the majority of silvopastoral areas are in good health condition. Main problems of the area are the increase of woody understory biomass in the silvopastoral systems that create a high risk for wild fires and result in the reduction of the landscape diversity.