The main characteristics of the Alentejo site are summarised hereafter:

Site name	Mértola - Baixo Alentejo
Information Providers	Departemento de Geografia e Planeamento Regional Faculdade de Ciências Socias e Humanas Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Site location
Geodetic coordinates in WGS84	lat: 37°38'47"N long: 7°42'24"W
Province	Mértola Municipality
Region	Baixo Alentejo
Country	Portugal
General conditions
Altitude range	200 m
Climate	Average precipitation (spatial range, mm/y): 560 mm/m²/y Average temperature (spatial range °C/y): +/- 22°C
Topography	Rolling topography, peneplain, with recent river incision, 200 m
Rock type	Metamorphic Schists, Devonic - Carbonic
Land cover	Shrubs (semi-natural): 34%% Continuous and discontinuous herbaceous cover: 48% Forest (pine + Quercus): 5% Ceral: 6%
Land Use	difficult to say, most of herbaceous cover is either pastures or fallow land, or both. So reasonably, at least 50% is agriculture, but shrubs are also used for bee keeping and game, so it's relative
Land condition	47% critical areas 36% fragile according to ESA methodology, Medalus projects
Local contacts	>Collaborative administration to facilitate data and stakeholders contacts: Municipality Regional Directions for Agriculture and Environment NGO's - Associaçao de Defesa do Patrimonio de Mértola Campo Arqueologico Farmers associations
Appraisal
Of what the site is representative in a Mediterranean context?	Quercus open forest (Montado), cereal cropping on marginal areas (leading to severe degradation)
Which is the relevance of applying DeSurvey to the site?	The site has representativeness of specific degradation processes, along with a significant rate of land-use change and represents a specific land-use vulnerability.
Might the site be complementary of other conditions?	Yes
Might the site allow comparative analysis with other sites?	Yes
Which is the relative impact of policy/subsidized, market and subsistence economy on land use structure?	Almost total
Which are the potential users of DeSurvey products in the site?	The various degrees of authority, regional, local, plus NGO~s, farmer associations, etc. This work has been thoroughly carried out during Desertlinks, and there is a very well established network of stakeholders, end users.
Research projects in the site	EVC4 - Climatic Variability (1988 - 91), EU: Erosion studies, and especially climatic variability Medalus (1991 - 99), EU: ESA methodology, all field data and work on land degradation and desertification Desertlinks (2001 - 04), EU: Very strong and well established network of stakeholders, workshops and cooperation in the past and present, ideal for validation LADAMER (2002 - 05), EU: Local methodology, infrastructure and network for system validation Montado (2004 - 06), EU+ National: Study about the Quercus forest, existing only in Alentejo and Extremadura in Spain. Best set of knowledge about this Land Use System
Information database	Only available for DeSurvey consortium