Barcelona Metropolitan Region
The Barcelona Metropolitan Region (BMR) case study site is managed by CREAF Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre. It is located in Catalonia, north-east Spain. This densely populated, 32,000 Km2 peri-urban Mediterranean area is characterized by a fragmented landscape embedding multiple competing land uses.
The BMR underwent extensive agriculture abandonment during the second half of the 20th century, leading to the spontaneous establishment of secondary forests in formerly cultivated areas (passive afforestation and unintended rewilding). Ultimately, this has resulted in an increase in forest surface by around 30% over the last 50 years.
After wildE, CREAF’s future rewilding plans mostly concern urban spaces (e.g. city parks and peri-urban forests). Sometimes these initiatives are not only oriented to enhance biodiversity, but also to promote water-saving in the expected scenarios of more intense drought events under climate change.
Challenges
The site has gone through major disturbance events such as wildfires, drought and forest decay episodes, exposure to forest pests, windstorms and flooding. These phenomena have been coupled with an intense urban sprawl since the 1970s, which has dramatically increased the urban-forest interface. Over time, conflict has grown between the demand for green areas (e.g. more than 9.5 million annual visits to the Natural Parks in the area) and wildfire risk.
Research
Although recently passively established forests on former croplands have been shown to have a high C storage potential and contribute to climate change mitigation, we know little about their climate sensitivity, their contribution to some threats such as wildfire risk, and their influence on biodiversity and other ecosystem services. In the BMR case study we will evaluate and compare the climatic sensitivity of recent-established (post-1950) and long-existing forests (pre-1950), their contribution to biodiversity support and wildfire risk, as well as assess the provision of different ecosystem services. This comparison will be carried out considering different climate change scenarios and forest management alternatives, with the final aim to provide guidelines for landscape and forest management to policy makers and practitioners.
Meet the Team
-
Lluís Brotons
Lluís is senior CSIC research scientist at CREAF. His research as a landscape ecologist focuses on the assessment of global change impacts on terrestrial communities with a strong emphasis on birds and Mediterranean landscape dynamics. He works in WP2, WP3 (where he leads a task on Biodiversity modelling) and WP4 where he acts as a co-chair of the WP.
-
Josep M. Espelta
He is senior researcher at the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF). He investigates the dynamics and functioning of spontaneous forest establishment in abandoned land to assess their contribution to climate change mitigation and their sensitivity to disturbances (e.g., wildfires). He coordinates the CREAF team in wildE.
-
Rodrigo Balaguer Romano
Rodrigo works in WP2 assisting with modeling tasks in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (BM) case study. He is a Postdoctoral Researcher at CREAF, where he works on ecology and forestry from an ecoinformatics perspective.
-
Miquel de Cáceres
Miquel is a CREAF researcher coordinating the Ecosystem Modelling Facility. As a researcher he is particularly interested in the development of process-based models of Mediterranean forest function and dynamics. Within WildE he participates in WP2 providing tools for the modeling tasks in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region.
-
Miriam Selwyn
Miriam is a predoctoral researcher at CREAF, whose research focuses on forest ecology, particularly plant-animal interactions, community assemblage and processes involved in ecological restoration. She works in WP2 assessing the potential effects of rewilding on ecosystem resilience.
Case studies
-
Coillte
Managed by Coillte, an Irish state-owned commercial forestry business.
-
Gelderse Poort
Managed by Staatsbosbeheer, the Dutch government organization in charge of management and conservation of forests.
-
Ruhrgebiet
Managed by German government institutions and organisations Rheinelbe, Zeche Zollverein, Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, Naturerfahrungsraum Peisberg and Gleispark Frintrop.
-
Sabor
Managed by CIBIO, the Portuguese Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources.
-
Sveaskog
Managed by Sveaskog, a Swedish, state-owned forest owner.
-
Tatras
Managed by the Slovakian National Park of High Tatras (TANAP).
-
Antarr
Managed by Sustainable Productive Forests company Antarr.