Innovative Techniques for Landscape Recovery after Clay Mining under Mediterranean Conditions

Open-pit mining results in profound modifications at different environmental scales that may persist for very long time periods, or even indefinitely. Considerable research efforts in mine reclamation strategies have been made, although reclamation failures are still common. In dry climates, such as in the Mediterranean Basin, successful actions may depend on features related to proper species selection and restoration techniques, which may substantially contribute to provide substrate stability and facilitate the regeneration of the main ecological processes. In this context, we developed the TECMINE case-study aimed to evaluate the feasibility and suitability of innovative restoration practices applied to clay-mine reclamation under Mediterranean conditions. The restoration strategy was designed at the landscape level with two main approaches: the recovery of natural geomorphology shapes and ecological restoration, including vegetation recovery and soil quality, based on proper reference ecosystems. After the geomorphological land remodeling, a combination of several innovative restoration techniques was implemented to reclaim plant communities and ecosystem functioning. These techniques involved: (i) accurate species selection according to microhabitat characteristics; (ii) high-quality plant production; (iii) surface remodeling to improve substrate stabilization; and (iv) implementing rainfall collection to enhance resources availability, soil fertility improvement and the amelioration of abiotic conditions for seedlings. Finally, we developed a monitoring program to assess the success of the implemented restoration techniques over time. The application of these innovative techniques has reported interesting results and represents a step forward in the improvement of mine restoration under Mediterranean climate.The study was funded by the LIFE TECMINE Project (LIFE16 ENV/ES/000159) from the European Programme for the Environment and Climate Action (2014–2020)*. L.M. was supported by the Spanish MICINN (PTA2019-018094). The CEAM foundation is funded by the Generalitat Valenciana

Detection and mapping of burnt areas from time series of MODIS-derived NDVI data in a Mediterranean region

Moderate resolution remote sensing data, as provided by MODIS, can be used to detect and map active or past wildfires from daily records of suitable combinations of reflectance bands. The objective of the present work was to develop and test simple algorithms and variations for automatic or semiautomatic detection of burnt areas from time series data of MODIS biweekly vegetation indices for a Mediterranean region. MODIS-derived NDVI 250m time series data for the Valencia region, East Spain, were subjected to a two-step process for the detection of candidate burnt areas, and the results compared with available fire event records from the Valencia Regional Government. For each pixel and date in the data series, a model was fitted to both the previous and posterior time series data. Combining drops between two consecutive points and 1-year average drops, we used discrepancies or jumps between the pre and post models to identify seed pixels, and then delimitated fire scars for each potential wildfire using an extension algorithm from the seed pixels. The resulting maps of the detected burnt areas showed a very good agreement with the perimeters registered in the database of fire records used as reference. Overall accuracies and indices of agreement were very high, and omission and commission errors were similar or lower than in previous studies that used automatic or semiautomatic fire scar detection based on remote sensing. This supports the effectiveness of the method for detecting and mapping burnt areas in the Mediterranean region.This work was supported by the research projects FEEDBACK (CGL2011-30515- C02-01), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Science, CASCADE (GA283068), funded by European Commission under the Seventh Framework Program, and GVPRE/2008/310, funded by the Valencia Regional Government (Generalitat Valenciana)

Restauración de montes quemados en condiciones mediterráneas

Wildfires may produce ecosystem damages that would require post-fire mitigation and/or restoration actions. The question is what are the criteria to identify those burned areas that show high degradation risk in order to plan and prioritise restoration projects. To address that question it is necessary to start with the analysis of fire impact, and from that analysis to derive predictive tools for assessing the fragility and regeneration capacity of burned ecosystems. The identification of post-fire degradation mechanisms provides the basis for developing the corresponding specific mitigation/restoration actions. The diagnostic of ecological impact of wildfires together with the established forest management objectives allow deriving mitigation/restoration strategies and the subsequent implementation projects. We present our experience on the evaluation of post-fire ecosystem vulnerability and on the assessment of restoration planning derived from recent and ongoing EC research projects. This includes the development of short-term restoration techniques suited for degraded soils and dry Mediterranean conditions, where fire-induced degradation is complicated with water shortage for regenerating vegetation

I+D aplicado a la gestión forestal y la lucha contra la desertificación: la experiencia del CEAM en la Comunidad Valenciana

La Fundación Centro de Estudios Ambientales del Mediterráneo desarrolla desde 1991 un amplio programa de I+D+I sobre "Restauración de la cubierta vegetal en la Comunidad Valenciana", por iniciativa de la Generalitat de esta Comunidad y con el apoyo financiero de la misma y de los diversos programas de investigación nacionales y europeos. Dicho programa de I+D analiza las causas de la desertificación en ambiente mediterráneo semiárido y seco-subhúmedo y desarrolla procedimientos y tecnologías para mejorar la prevención de incendios y la restauración de ecosistemas degradados. Las actividades se realizan en estrecha colaboración con los servicios forestales de la Comunidad Valenciana, e incluyen desde investigación orientada a la resolución de problemas de gestión forestal hasta la puesta en marcha de proyectos piloto de demostración.El programa de I+D Forestal del CEAM ha sido promovido y financiado por la Generalidad Valenciana y ha recibido financiación complementaria de la Fundación Bancaixa, el Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, el Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y la Dirección General de Investigación de la Comisión Europea

Integración de una cartografía de vientos en situaciones meteorológicas de riesgo de incendios forestales en la Comunidad Valenciana mediante un SIG

Las condiciones meteorológicas constituyen un factor decisivo en la dinámica y evolución de los incendios forestales. Se ha analizado las condiciones meteorológicas propicias para la propagación de incendios forestales en la Comunidad Valenciana. Tres situaciones cubren la mayor cantidad de interacciones entre condiciones sinópticas y vientos regionales: 1) ciclo de brisas con baja térmica; 2) vientos de poniente con efecto Föhn; 3) ciclo combinado, ciclo diurno de brisa con acoplamiento de la brisa terral con el Oeste por la noche. Se ha utilizado el modelo mesoescalar Regional Atmospheric Modelling System para simular los flujos de viento en estos tipos sinópticos, obteniéndose una cartografía con la evolución del viento a gran resolución y desagregada por cuencas. Los resultados se han integrado en un SIG para efectuar análisis cartográficos con aplicación directa en la gestión forestal, tanto en la prevención como en la extinción de incendios

Integración de una cartografía de vientos en situaciones meteorológicas de riesgo de incendios forestales en la Comunidad Valenciana mediante un SIG

Las condiciones meteorológicas constituyen un factor decisivo en la dinámica y evolución de los incendios forestales. Se ha analizado las condiciones meteorológicas propicias para la propagación de incendios forestales en la Comunidad Valenciana. Tres situaciones cubren la mayor cantidad de interacciones entre condiciones sinópticas y vientos regionales: 1) ciclo de brisas con baja térmica; 2) vientos de poniente con efecto Föhn; 3) ciclo combinado, ciclo diurno de brisa con acoplamiento de la brisa terral con el Oeste por la noche. Se ha utilizado el modelo mesoescalar Regional Atmospheric Modelling System para simular los flujos de viento en estos tipos sinópticos, obteniéndose una cartografía con la evolución del viento a gran resolución y desagregada por cuencas. Los resultados se han integrado en un SIG para efectuar análisis cartográficos con aplicación directa en la gestión forestal, tanto en la prevención como en la extinción de incendios

Climate, and not fire, drives the phylogenetic clustering of species with hard-coated seeds in Mediterranean Basin communities

Hardseededness is a common trait in Mediterranean plant communities, although the origin of its selection is controversial. It may be a mechanism of persistence to fire temperatures, but could also form part of a gap-detecting mechanism to provide germination cues under arid conditions. To disentangle this, we studied the phylogenetic structure of plant communities against fire frequency and aridity gradients. The phylogenetic structure in Mediterranean Basin ecosystems was analysed for the hardseededness trait as a whole and was separated by the families composing this trait (Fabaceae and Cistaceae). This study focused on woody perennial species. The phylogenetic structure was also contrasted against soil classes. Hardseededness on the whole, and for the Fabaceae family alone, showed phylogenetic clustering as aridity increased. Cistaceae displayed the opposite pattern with phylogenetic clustering in most humid areas, together with a significant soil effect. Surprisingly, fire frequency had no influence in any case. This climate-driven phylogenetic clustering indicates that the hardseededness trait could confer some fitness advantage under dry conditions. For this reason, coexisting species were more closely related in the community with increasing aridity. This effect was especially evident for the Fabaceae family. These results shed some light on the evolutionary selection of this adaptive trait under Mediterranean conditions. Our results question the role of fire in the selection of the hardseededness trait in Mediterranean Basin ecosystems and indicates that climate is the most important factor. Therefore, we should be cautious in assigning to fire a preponderant role in the selection of some plant traits.This research was financed by the IMAGINA (PROMETEO/2019/110) project. VMS was supported by a “Beatriu de Pinós” fellowship (2014BP-B-00056) from the Generalitat de Catalunya. JGA was supported by a Ramón y Cajal fellowship (RYC-2016-20528). IA was supported by a Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme with Marie Sklodowska-Curie Cofund grant agreement No. 801596

Restauración de montes quemados en condiciones mediterráneas

Wildfires may produce ecosystem damages that would require post-fire mitigation and/or restoration actions. The question is what are the criteria to identify those burned areas that show high degradation risk in order to plan and prioritise restoration projects. To address that question it is necessary to start with the analysis of fire impact, and from that analysis to derive predictive tools for assessing the fragility and regeneration capacity of burned ecosystems. The identification of post-fire degradation mechanisms provides the basis for developing the corresponding specific mitigation/restoration actions. The diagnostic of ecological impact of wildfires together with the established forest management objectives allow deriving mitigation/restoration strategies and the subsequent implementation projects. We present our experience on the evaluation of post-fire ecosystem vulnerability and on the assessment of restoration planning derived from recent and ongoing EC research projects. This includes the development of shortterm restoration techniques suited for degraded soils and dry Mediterranean conditions, where fire-induced degradation is complicated with water shortage for regenerating vegetation

Fuzzy rule-based decision support system for evaluation of long-established forest restoration projects

Although the importance of monitoring and evaluation of restoration actions is increasingly acknowledged, availability of accurate, quantitative monitoring data is very rare for most restoration areas, particularly for long-established restoration projects. We propose using fuzzy rule-based expert systems to evaluate the degree of success of restoration actions when available information on project results and impacts largely relies on expert-based qualitative assessments and rough estimates of quantitative values. These systems use fuzzy logic to manage the uncertainty present in the data and to integrate qualitative and quantitative information. To illustrate and demonstrate the potential of fuzzy rule-based systems for restoration evaluation, we applied this approach to seven forest restoration projects implemented in Spain between 1897 and 1952, using information compiled in the REACTION database on Mediterranean forest restoration projects. The information available includes both quantitative and expert-based qualitative data, and covers a wide variety of indicators grouped into technical, structural, functional, and socioeconomic criteria. The fuzzy rule-based system translates expert knowledge of restoration specialists and forest managers into a set of simple logic rules that integrate information on individual indicators into more general evaluation criteria. The rule-based approach proposed here can be readily applicable to any kind of restoration project, provided that some information, even if vague and uncertain, is available for a variety of assessment indicators. The evaluation of long-established forest restoration projects implemented in Spain revealed important asymmetries in the degree of restoration success between technical, structural, functional, and socioeconomic criteria.This work has been supported by REACTION (contract no. EVK2-CT2002-80025) and CASCADE (FP7, grant agreement no. 283068) projects, funded by the European Commission; DRYEX project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competiveness (CGL2014-59074-R); and ITAKA research group, under the Government of Catalonia grants 2009SGR-01523 and 2014SGR-652

Predicting natural hyperdense regeneration after wildfires in Pinus halepensis (Mill.) forests using prefire site factors, forest structure and fire severity

Postfire Pinus halepensis (Aleppo pine) regeneration is often hyperdense. The overstocked stands created by this hyperdense regeneration considerably increase the risk of biotic and abiotic disturbances, especially fires, by increasing the potential for widespread forest losses. Our aim was to understand the relation between prefire site factors (climate, geographical position, topography, soil), prefire forest structure variables and fire severity with regeneration density after fire. We specifically wondered: (1) what are the general drivers of natural regeneration in these forests after fire?; (2) what are the necessary prefire conditions for establishing Aleppo pine hyperdense regenerations (>4,000 plants/ha)? To answer these questions, we sampled 147 plots in 15 wildfires located in the Comunitat Valenciana, which were representative of Aleppo pine Mediterranean forests. We used full and partial redundancy analyses (RDAs) for variance partitioning, and a decision tree analysis to look for the key site factors that drive regeneration density after fire. We found that all the site factors measured in the study explained 34.4 % of total variation in regeneration density. Prefire site factors and fire severity together explained 28.4 % of total variability, while the measured postfire factors explained only 7.5 %. Forest structure and climate explained 8.3 % and 6.7 % of variation, respectively. Five specific site factors drove regeneration density after fire: average minimum temperature, tree density before fire, resprouting shrubs coverage before fire, soil depth and bedrock type. The conclusions of this study were: (i) the average minimum temperature was the main significant variable that classified regeneration density and split data into three significant groups of Aleppo pine burned sites; (ii) the prefire forest structure (overstorey density and understorey coverage) controls regeneration density at colder burned sites, but soil depth and bedrock can be more important at warmer sites; (iii) fire severity relates positively to pine regeneration density, but negatively to resprouting vegetation coverage after fire; (iv) overstocked stands are not expected if prefire stand density is below 100 trees/ha at colder burned sites. These results may facilitate the planning of forest management and restoration actions because it may be used to identify those areas more likely to regenerate overstocked stands when faced with a changing fire regime.This article forms part of Project PROMETEO/2019/110