Soil conservation options for olive orchards on sloping land

Olive production is an important and growing agricultural activity throughout the Meditteranean zone. At the same time, soil erosion is one of the environmental key problems in this zone. Actual erosion in olive production areas is high, in particular on sloping land. Several erosion risk factors are present here: rainfall erosivity, soil erodibility, steep slopes and poor ground cover. In this paper an inventory is made of the actual situation and trends of olive production and erosion hazards, subsequently soil conservation options are briefly described