‘This restless enemy of all fertility’: exploring paradigms of coastal dune management in Western Europe over the last 700 years

Drifting sand has inundated settlements and damaged agricultural land along the coasts of Western Europe for the last 700 years. The need to control sand migration has been an important driver of the management of coastal sand dunes and here we analyse original archival materials to provide new insights into historically changing coastal dune management practices. Records of coastal sand movement in Denmark, The Netherlands, Britain, Ireland and France were reviewed and three distinct management approaches were identified. The ways in which these approaches have played out in space and time were examined with particular reference to records from landed estates in Britain and Ireland. We demonstrate how historical evidence can be used to inform contemporary debates on dune management strategy and practice. We propose a new place-based approach to the future management of coastal dunes that can incorporate both expert and locally produced ‘knowledges’ and that is underpinned by an understanding of how both natural forces and human interventions have shaped these dune landscapes over time

ACTIVAGE - D9.6 Final results report & sustainability plan (I to IX)

We have reached the end of a challenging and rewarding journey, after 45 months of ACTIVAGE, this is the last report that aims at providing a taste of the huge work done by the teams at the local sites. This is a testimony of the more than 45 partners that have participated in this WP. We started with 9 DS in 7 countries and we finish with 12 DS in 9 countries, having incorporated three new DS through the open call, and expanding ACTIVAGE vision and ecosystem to Portugal and Bulgaria. We have been able to reach the target of deploying AHA-IoT solutions for more than 7.200 users, we hit the mark of 7.776 and almost 97% of the expected deployments. All DS have been able to perform the evaluation, at local and global level, generating the evidence that ACTIVAGE vision is pertinent, relevant, and effective. Details are provided in the individual results and in D6.5. By the end of the project, still 80% of participants continue operation, and almost all DS have in place sustainability plans to continue providing ACTIVAGE services in one way or another. Even in the cases where no clear plans have been possible, there are opportunities for exploiting the services and the knowledge gained in the project

Multi-scale habitat selection and foraging ecology of the eurasian hoopoe (Upupa epops) in pine plantations

Bird conservation can be challenging in landscapes with high habitat turnover such as planted forests, especially for species that require large home ranges and juxtaposition of diVerent habitats to complete their life cycle. The eurasian hoopoe (Upupa epops) has declined severely in western Europe but is still abundant in south-western France. We studied habitat selection of hoopoes in pine plantation forests using a multi-scale survey, including point-counts at the landscape level and radio-tracking at the home-range scale. We quantiWed habitat use by systematically observing bird behaviour and characterized foraging sites according to micro-habitat variables and abundance of the main prey in the study area, the pine processionary moth (Thaumetopoea pityocampa). At the landscape scale, hoopoes selected habitat mosaics of high diversity, including deciduous woods and hedgerows as main nesting sites. At the home-range scale, hoopoes showed strong selection for short grassland vegetation along sand tracks as main foraging habitats. Vegetation was signiWcantly shorter and sparser at foraging sites than random, and foraging intensity appeared to be signiWcantly correlated with moth winter nest abundance. Hoopoe nesting success decreased during the three study years in line with processionary moth abundance. Thus, we suggest that hoopoes need complementation between foraging and breeding habitats to establish successfully in pine plantations. Hoopoe conservation requires the maintenance of adjacent breeding (deciduous woods) and foraging habitats (short swards adjacent to plantation edges), and consequently depends on the maintenance of habitat diversity at the landscape scale