Summary

The water quality of the River Paiva is considered one of the best in Europe and the catchment has obvious conservation value. However, the Paiva does suffer from pressures related to recurrent disturbances and human land use such as forest fires, agricultural activities, urbanization and pressures affecting the natural hydromorphological condition and continuity of water bodies. Noted pressures include the invasion of Acacia, clearance of native vegetation and forests for agriculture and urban development but also to supply the pulp and construction industries. Planting of Eucalyptus monocultures and the spread urban areas of have also altered catchment vegetation and land use patterns. The river itself is also affected by the presence of small and larger hydroelectric installations, weirs, the extraction and washing of gravel and sands for aggregate in the construction industry and organic discharge from over capacitated wastewater treatment plants. Rural areas of the Paiva catchment are also subject to abandonment as the younger members of the rural population move to urban areas for employment.

In the context of Global Change it is widely accepted that forests play an important role in the mitigation effects of global warming and the fixation of carbon, regulation of river discharge and hydrological stability at a catchment scale and providing a wide variety of ecosystem services. These ecological functions cannot be replaced by actual human-made reforestations, which lack multiple steps of ecological succession and have nothing to do with biological, physical and chemical soil properties.

In general, this situation claims for an integrative and locally-tailored territory management strategy that could account for global change effects on local economies, biodiversity and ecosystem service provisioning. This will help prioritizing public and private local, national and international investments in the area (e.g. forestry, tourism, and agriculture) that better achieve the common goal of improving biodiversity and ecosystem service delivery, while improving socioeconomic indicators.

For additional information

Date: 2017

This work is funded through the ALICE project: “Improving the management of Atlantic Landscapes: accounting for biodiversity and ecosystem services”. ALICE is a project funded in 75% by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the umbrella of INTERREG Atlantic Area with the application code: EAPA_261/2016. The 11 partners involved in the project are from Portugal, Spain, Northern Ireland, France and the United Kingdom. The three-year project started in November 2017 has cost 3 million euros with 25% covered by the beneficiary partners.

Coordination by

E. Cabecinha, A.Fonseca, J. Martinho, J. Aranha, S.M. Monteiro,
F. Pacheco, L.F. Fernandes, R. Cortes, J. Cabral, M. Santos, J. Santos, S. Varandas, K. Fustec and J. Ballé

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