09.06.2020

ALICE partners develop three strategies based on nature to prevent natural disasters in Cantabria

How do Blue and Green Infrastructure Networks can prevent natural disasters while assuring the provision of ecosystem services?

On World Environment Day, the Environmental Hydraulics Institute of the University of Cantabria IHCantabria, coordinator of the European Project ALICE, and the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3), show how Blue and Green Infrastructure Networks (BGINs) can prevent natural disasters while assuring the provision of ecosystem services.

Through the analysis of different natural disasters in Cantabria, experts have highlighted the negative impact they have on the regulation of their ecosystems. Said impact is aggravated by the growing trend to replace native forests with monocultures for logging, as well as frequent fires that mainly affect shrubs and grasslands throughout the region, among other actions primarily of anthropogenic origin.

In order to prevent future natural disasters and move towards more sustainable socio-economic and environmental policies, researchers from IHCantabria and BC3 have developed three strategies: (learn more here)

• Re-naturalization of the fluvial and riparian ecosystems of Híjar river to reduce the flooding risk in Reinosa;
• Prescribed burning of grass as a tool for sustainable forest management, farming, pasture maintenance or greenhouse sink and a way to control fire hazard;
• Consolidation of several riparian buffers along six of the water courses of the Monte Corona to match the productive use with the conservation of the natural values and the regulatory ecosystem services provided by the native forests.

For each of these strategies a video has been made to illustrate the interventions and key actors, as Government of Cantabria, investigators from University of Cantabria and Forest Fire Prevention Teams technicians:

• El Híjar: a river disconnected from its flood plain in Reinosa
• Green filters at Monte Corona
• Prescribed burning: a pilot project in Cantabria

ALICE project, a consortium of 11 partners, aims to improve the management of Atlantic landscapes using a series of hydrographic basins in Spain, Portugal, France and Northern Ireland as case studies. It also proposes the use of nature-based solutions to favor ecosystem services and biodiversity, through the implementation of BGINs.

Source: ALICE project

Published on: 2020-06-09