In order to recovering the functionality of the ecosystem in degraded areas of the Mediterranean region of Spain, mainly affected by recurrent forest fire regimes, protective reforestation projects have been profusely implemented during the last decades. These reforestations are particularly complex due to the complex orography, soil stoniness and the lack of available water, involving high cost of planting and low initial plant survival. Moreover, the techniques used to select the sites have been tradionally based on quality site assessments based on too general environmental descriptors. A renewal of these techniques using an ecohydrological approach could favour the success of plantations both in their initial implementation and when considering more water-limited conditions due to climate change. This approach involves: i) site selection according to the quantification of water available and ii) species or provenance selection based on their water requirements and strategies. With this eco-hydrological approach, the open-source tool ECHYZON (Eco-hydrological zoning for Precision Forestry) has been developed on the Google Earth Engine platform. ECHYZON is a remote sensing-based tool that specifically applies the TVMDI (Temp-Veg-Moist Drought). In this work, the accuracy and applicability of this tool will be assessed with real Pinus halepensis plantations. Six assisted migration plots included in the LIFE ADAPT-ALEPPO project will be used: three of them implemented during the life of the project (2022) with 7 provenances of Pinus halepensis, and the other three in 2008 with 11 provenances. These plots have been monitored including height and diameter measurements (growth) and tree survival. These field-base measurements values will be related to the values extracted from the ECHYZON tool when categorising the land to be reforested. We assume that the more water-favourable areas according to ECHYZON will correlate positively with higher growth and survival rates.
Laura Blanco-Cano, María C. González-Sanchis, Javier Pérez-Romero, Antonio J. Molina-Herrera; Antonio D. del Campo-García
Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV)
ID Abstract: 855