Catalonia has declared a drought-induced “state of exceptionality” , tightening the restrictions already in place on many uses of water with the aim of safeguarding the population’s water supply. The situation is serious, and simply folding our arms and hoping for rain is not enough.
Why can the drought that Catalonia is experiencing today not be blamed solely on climate change? Could the situation of persistent drought be a foreshadowing of what Europe will experience in the coming years? To what extent does the situation have to do with water management policies? What are the steps we need to take from now on? We are trying to provide a summary to answer these questions, about a case that is not isolated and may be the prelude to situations that will arise over the next 50 years.
On 7 November, the European Parliament was the venue for an unprecedented seminar entitled "The need for forest management. The case of Mediterranean forests", organised by Catalan MEP Jordi Solé, vice-president of the Greens/EFA parliamentary group. The seminar opened with a welcome address by Jordi Solé, who presented the critical context of forests in Catalonia. The event was attended by leading figures in the field from various research centres and institutions, including CREAF.
CREAF and CSIC researcher Josep Peñuelas signed an editorial in Global Change Biology about COP26 and their results or objectives, like nature based solutions.
Drought and its consequences is one of the 4 most critical natural hazards in the mountain areas of Southwest Europe, together with floods, fires and soil degradation. This is one of the starting points of the third transnational seminar on strategies for the management and prevention of drought impacts on mountain forests in Southwest Europe, integrated in the SUDOE MONTCLIMA project.
A severe episode of drought in Doñana National Park (Spain), coinciding with a harsh winter, marked the beginning of a research study led by ecologist Maria Paniw, co-authored by CREAF researcher Francisco Lloret and fellow researcher Enrique de la Riva.
A new study with the MEDFATE forest simulation model makes it possible to read into the effect of the mixture of plant species and their interactions in terms of water use and drought stress.
Climate change is making forests all over the world more vulnerable to drought, causing tree mortality episodes with serious ecological and social consequences. As yet, the traits of the vegetation replacing trees that have died as a result of drought are not known.
