DynaFun

Vegetation dynamics in the Iberian landscapes from a structural and a functional perspective: assessing early warning signals of ecosystem disturbance

Participant

DynaFun aims to improve the understanding and monitoring of changes in the vegetation of the Iberian Peninsula through two different approaches: the exploration of structural changes in land use and land cover types (LULC) and the exploration of functional changes based on ecosystem attributes (EFA) and functional types (EFT).

Unplanned changes in vegetation across the landscape can strongly impact ecosystem functioning, influencing territorial sustainability. Currently, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding of these changes, including their magnitudes, locations, timing, and driving factors from both structural and functional perspectives. To address this challenge, DynaFun aims to improve the understanding and monitoring of vegetation changes in the Iberian Peninsula through two distinct approaches: exploring structural changes in land use and land cover (LULC) types and exploring functional changes based on ecosystem functional attributes (EFA) and types (EFT).

The project is organized around 5 main objectives that address:

(O1) Enhancing remote sensing methods to refine quality and robustness in tracking LULC trajectories and analyzing their spatial and temporal trends over the medium term.
(O2) Developing an improved approach to EFT dynamics based on remote-sensing-derived indicators such as productivity, seasonality, and phenology, and examining their consistency in areas without cover changes (non-stand replacement areas).
(O3) Refining the definition and combination of a set of biophysical and socioeconomic drivers of change that affect both structural and functional perspectives and comparing their relevance to LULC and EFT dynamics.
(O4) Conducting an in-depth analysis of the links between LULC and EFA-EFT dynamics, focusing on detecting non-permanent cover changes (non-stand changes) as early warning signals of LULC changes.
(O5) Improving communication and knowledge transfer to society through the use of innovative map servers and viewers that share data following the principles of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability (FAIR), in line with the Green Deal Data Space (GDDS) of the European Digital Strategy.