Analysis of Replicability of Conservation Actions across Mediterranean Europe

• Main Authors: Daniel Ibarra-Marinas, Francisco Belmonte-Serrato, Ramón García-Marín, Gustavo Ballesteros-Pelegrín
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-06-01
• Series: Land
• Subjects: environmental restoration; conservation; replicability; Natura 2000 network; coastal salt flats; wetlands
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/6/598

In the Regional Park of Las Salinas and Arenales of San Pedro del Pinatar, in southeastern Spain, an environmental restoration and conservation project is being developed whose principle actions include adaptation of hillocks with a saline substrate to improve the reproduction habitat of aquatic birds and increasing the production of salt, dune restoration and conservation, protection of the first dune ridge through the collection of seagrass tops, and designing and implementation of a salt quality seal, which may be useful for reproduction in other sites in the Natura 2000 network, especially in the European Mediterranean area and in the Black Sea environment. The objective of this research study was to analyse and locate the sites that could possibly replicate the actions of the project. In order to do this, spatial databases were used from the Natura 2000 network, salt flats, and marshes as well as Ramsar sites and SPAMI sites, and from them a shape file of points was created in the places with the presence of maritime dunes associated with marsh systems/salt flats. One hundred thirty-one sites in the Natura 2000 network were located, of which in 105 cases, one or more of the four actions considered in this research study can be replicated. Of these, 24 cases have active or recently abandoned salt flats in which the two main actions of the project can be replicated, and 11 of these sites meet characteristics for the replicability of the four actions, of which three have not been implemented by the LIFE projects developed on those sites.