To study the magnitude of land degradation, desertification or resilience in Montenegro throughout the 20 th and early 21 st century, we re-photographed the landscapes pictured on 48 historical photographs dating back to periods between 1890 and 1985, and analysed in a semiquantitative way the land use and cover changes that occurred through an expert rating system (six correspondents). Time series of hydrology and population density were analysed for the period since 1948, and compared to the changes observed through repeat photography. Overall, vegetation cover has strongly increased and barren areas occupy less space. The industrialisation that expanded in the 1950s led to strong urbanisation. Despite steadily increasing population (with the notable exception of the Mountain region), the vegetation cover has increased strongly and everywhere. This denser vegetation has led to higher infiltration of rainfall. Partitioning of infiltration water led on one hand to deep infiltration and better low flows and on the other hand to increased evapotranspiration at the boundary layer, leading to decreased total runoff coefficients. In the Mountain region, runoff coefficients have increased, which may be related to earlier snowmelt. Overall, the findings of this study are in line with observations elsewhere in the former SFR of Yugoslavia that, as a result of erosion control and significant vegetation regrowth, the changes observed over a century point to land resilience and not to desertification.Key words: Discharge, Land degradation, Population growth, Repeat photography, Runoff coefficient
IntroductionRecent studies discuss (Brandt and Thornes, 1996;Geeson et al., 2002;Hill et al., 2008;Hooke, 2006;Kosmas et al., 1997;Le Houérou, 1989), and sometimes question (Butzer, 2005;Grove and Rackham, 2001), the magnitude of land degradation and desertification in the Mediterranean basin, the human responses, and the linkages with land use and cover (LUC) changes. This is an actual environmental issue, where mostly the strong evidence for trends in desertification/
