The project was designed to prevent fires and improve the biodiversity of a typical Mediterranean mountain environment such as Montserrat, through silvopastoral management practices.
The islands of Macaronesia are not spared from the effects of climate change, being very vulnerable to their consequences given their particular geographical situation, insularity, remoteness from the continent, fragmentation, external dependency, scarcity of natural resources, demographic density, dependence on the tourism sector and great biodiversity.
The Kis-Sárrét area is located in south-eastern Hungary close to the Romanian border. The area is part of the Körös-Maros National Park and is included in the Natura 2000 network. It hosts numerous plants, animals, and habitat types of EU community importance. Its landscape has undergone dramatic changes during the past 200 years. In particular, extensive marshes were reduced and altered as a result of water regulations between 1856 and 1879. As a consequence, many areas constantly or temporarily covered by water disappeared, and the traditional management of the natural landscape changed.
The Ebro delta (Catalonia, Spain) and its coastal lagoons (Alfacada and Tancada) are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, particularly to sea level rise. In combination with sediment deficit due to river regulation and subsidence, sea lever rise can lead to exacerbated coastal erosion and retreat. Local management practices (e.g. intensive rice farming) have also affected the natural habitats and species of the delta, causing wetland loss and changes in salinity and water quality.
Historically, the Regge was a free-flowing shallow lowland river which meandered through a landscape containing marshes, wet meadows and sandy levees. To facilitate shipping, from 1848 onwards the river was straightened by cutting off meanders, and the river channel was deepened and widened. Dams were built to better regulate the river flow, and the floodplain was embanked to protect the adjacent land from flooding. In 1935, the river was almost completely canalised, reducing its length from roughly 70 km to 50 km.
The Masdunas project is a pilot initiative born with the aim of finding the appropriate solutions to halt, as much as possible, the environmental degradation that has occurred over the past 50 years in the Maspalomas Dunes, largely due to the unsustainable use of its resources. The aim is to prevent the potential disappearance of the mobile dune field in the coming years, thus preserving its environmental value and its significance as a tourist attraction.
The Tablas de Daimiel is a virtually unique wetland in Europe and the last representative of the ecosystem known as 'river tables,' once characteristic of the central plain of our Peninsula. It is a complex ecosystem that combines the characteristics of a floodplain, created by the overflows of the Guadiana and Gigüela rivers at their confluence, with an area of groundwater discharge from a large aquifer, resulting in the formation of a waterlogged river area: the river tables.
The objective of the Pteridum project was to analyze the economic viability of controlling common fern populations (Pteridium aquilinum) in a circular economy system adapted to climate change in the Cantabrian Mountains, and reducing forest fires caused or favored by their presence by controlling their expansion in an environmentally respectful way.
Until the 1970s, the lower section of the Arga River, near its confluence with the Aragón, meandered through a wide floodplain, with intense fluvial dynamics. At the time, it was deemed necessary to carry out works to contain the river's floods, leading to its rectification and channelling in the section from the town of Falces to the mouth of the Aragón River.
This case describes the steps taken towards achieving more balanced management of Cork Harbour, through the establishment of a strategic alliance (couplet) between the local authority and multidisciplinary academic experts. This innovative partnership resulted in the adoption of an Integrated Management Strategy. A stakeholder group – Harbour Management Focus Group (HMFG) – comprising statutory and non-statutory organisations was established to implement the management strategy.