Extremes Rainfall Events on Riparian Flora and Vegetation in the Mediterranean Basin: A Challenging but Completely Unexplored Theme

In a global climate change scenario Extreme climatic events are expected to widely affect flora and vegetation in Med-regions, especially Extremes Rainfall Events which will have impacts on riparian environments. Aiming to provide an in-depth picture on the effects of these events on the riparian flora and vegetation in the Mediterranean Basin, especially focusing on islands, a bibliographic search was performed in the main international databases, which led to 571 articles published from 2000 to 2021. Most studies have analyzed these phenomena from the climatic point of view identifying three main topics Rainfall, Global/Climate change, and Flood. 81 papers concerned effects of extreme events on Mediterranean woodland formations and cultivated plants. A further analysis focused on European countries and Mediterranean bioregion using Extreme rainfall events and Extreme rainfall and floods as keywords. A low number of records relating to Mediterranean island regions was found, having Sicily as the study area. Moreover, seven articles had Sardinia as a study area, four of which referred to flora and vegetation. A lack of studies on the effects of extreme rainfall events on riparian flora and vegetation were highlighted. This review constitutes a call for researchers to explore extreme phenomena that have become recurrent in the Mediterranean Basin.

Automated summary

In this review, the effects of extreme rainfall events on riparian flora and vegetation in the Mediterranean Basin, with a focus on islands, are examined. The study finds a lack of research in this area and calls for further exploration of this phenomenon.