PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Mountain areas are the major source of freshwater for lowlands thanks to their perennial and intermittent rivers. As such, effective land management of these areas should be included in Southern Europes climate change adaptation measures. These regions are also vulnerable to many physical and anthropogenic impacts, such as the recent rural abandonment of mountain slopes which has dramatically reduced the landscapes diversity. These impacts make Southern Europeans mountains highly sensitive to climate change, particularly in terms of downstream water resources. An excellent climate change adaptation approach is to convert and/or maintain heterogeneous agro-forest-pastoral land mosaics. Such landscapes support higher biodiversity, provide vital ecosystem services, and are more resilient to climate change. Landscape diversification also makes agricultural and forest environments more sustainable and boosts their economic potential.
OBJECTIVES
The main objective of LIFE MIDMACC is to promote climate change adaptation in marginal mid-mountain areas of Spain, while improving socioeconomic development.
The project has the following specific objectives:
develop and implement landscape adaptation in marginal mid-mountain areas to improve their environmental and socio-economic resilience to climate change;assess the socio-economic and ecologic effectiveness of such measures, working across sectors and at multiple scales and determining related implications through widespread monitoring and modelling;involve key managers and economic and environmental agents in the design, development and assessment processes and work to get affected regional committees involved early in decision making;create a coordinated policy framework among regional governments to improve the sustainable use of marginal mid-mountain areas;develop integrated climate change adaptation guidelines for mid-mountain areas;raise awareness at local and regional levels about societal and environmental climate change adaptation in mountainous areas; andsupport how European policies on climate change adaptation in mountainous rural areas are applied and developed.
RESULTS
Expected results:
nine pilot experiences completed using three climate change adaptation approaches:o scrubland clearing for extensive livestock farming leading to increased water runoff, reduced soil erosion, greater pasture diversity and nutritional value; o forest management to reduce fire risk and manage extensive livestock farming to increase carbon uptake and water runoff and reduce wildfire risk; o vineyard management practices enabling reduced water consumption and more efficient rainfall use while maintaining carbon uptake.
at regional and national levels in the area of study: o three regional stakeholder committees and one supra-regional working group established; o one cross-sectoral climate change vulnerability assessment conducted, based on current climate state and climate change predictions; o previous adaptation practices in mid-mountain areas compiled and evaluated; o scale-up the results of the pilot monitoring to the river basin level; o guidelines created on integrated climate change adaptation for marginal or more vulnerable mid-mountain areas.at European level: o three replicability activities in other Euro-Mediterranean mountain regions conducted; o one handbook created on lessons learned.LIFE MIDMACC fully contributes to the development, implementation and enforcement of the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change (EUSACC) and as well as other related Union policy on climate change adaptation. It will also contribute to the Spanish National Climate Change Adaptation Plan (PNACC, 2006), the Catalan Strategy for Adapting to Climate Change (ESCACC, 2012) supported by the Catalan Law of Climate Change, the Climate Change and Clean Energy Strategy of Aragon (EACCEL, 2009) and the Regional Strategy of Climate Change Adaptation of La Rioja (under approval as of July 2019).
