https://hdl.handle.net/10481/20063 2026-04-13T20:51:56Z 2026-04-13T20:51:56Z Rosa, Diego de la Kotb Abd-Elmabod, Sameh https://hdl.handle.net/10481/21700 2021-06-15T16:33:49Z

Agroecological soil evaluation for monitoring water quality using microleis DSS Rosa, Diego de la; Kotb Abd-Elmabod, Sameh Soil degradation has both indirect and direct effects on the quality of surface and ground waters. In this sense, agriculture is one of the key activities causing water quality degradation in many parts of Mediterranean systems. In the European Union, the purpose of the Water Framework Directive (European Commission, 2000) is to establish a framework for the protection of inland surface, transitional, coastal and ground waters too. A major source of surface and ground water pollution is the diffuse contamination caused by nitrates in agricultural lands. This specific water protection was regulated by the Nitrates Directive (ND, 1991/676/EC), which in Spain was developed by a Royal Decree (261/1996/BOE), and in Andalusia region by a Decree (36/2008/BOJA) for the designation of water quality vulnerability zones (22 zones) and an Order of the Regional Government of Andalusia (18.11.2008/BOJA) to establish the action programs (1 unique program) to be implemented by farmers. However, the Nitrates Directive considers that different action programs may be established for different vulnerable zones or parts of those areas. Also, these action programs must take into account scientific and technical information that are available on each particular soil and climatic conditions, such as rainfall erosivity, length of the growing season, slope, soil infiltration and soil denitrification capacity. Within this context, the agro-ecological decision support system MicroLEIS DSS (technology developed by CSIC-IRNAS and transferred to Evenor-Tech, www.evenor-tech.com) is considered a very appropriate tool to include the soil and climatic attributes for a better identification of vulnerable zones and formulation of action programs. In this paper, the MicroLEIS DSS modelling infrastructure to predict soil erosion and contamination risks (ImpelERO and Pantanal models, basically) is discussed, as a scientific approach to identify detailed vulnerable areas, and formulate site-specific management plans for sustainable water use and protection in Andalusia region. The high variability of the results from this agro-ecological land evaluation research in Water Quality Vulnerability Zones demonstrates the importance of using soil information in decision-making regarding the formulation of site-specific soil use and management strategies.

Van der Knaap, Wim Pijnappels, Mark https://hdl.handle.net/10481/21689 2021-06-15T16:33:42Z

Water and spatial development: the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the Netherlands Van der Knaap, Wim; Pijnappels, Mark This paper discusses how water managers and spatial planners could co-operate on local level in combination with the implementation of the Water Framework Directive and the Birds and Habitats Directives in the Netherlands. Recent evaluations of the European Commission show that implementation of environmental directives prove to be a challenging task for the responsible authorities. Studies show that legal and procedural aspects of planning and decision making gain the most attention at the EU level, the formal side, while environmental goals are fading into the background, especially on the EU level. The difficulties that arise in the implementation process on a local and regional level are discussed combined with the integration of both directives from policy and practice. The local co-operation between water managers and spatial planners depends heavily on its basic element: competing interests. Aspects that shape this cooperation and define its effectiveness are: language (discipline related jargon), contracts, trust, personal competence, policy tuning & policy instruments, institutional innovations, instrumental innovations and mental innovations. These aspects will be discussed based on two case studies with water management and spatial planning aspects. This local co-operation is mainly informal of character.

Hernández-Mora, Nuria Ballester, Alba https://hdl.handle.net/10481/21688 2021-06-15T16:33:44Z

Public participation and the role of social networks in the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in Spain Hernández-Mora, Nuria; Ballester, Alba The Water Framework Directive establishes a common framework for EU water policy. One of its guiding principles is the promotion of public participation in water planning and management. In response to this requirement, River Basin Authorities are undertaking public participation and consultation processes as part of the elaboration of the Draft Basin Management Plans. This article describes and analyzes these processes, placing them in the context of wider public discussions and debates over water policy that have taken place in Spain over the past two decades. The paper argues that some of the strengths of Spanish WFD-related public participation processes derive from the significant improvement in the amount of information made available to the public, and from the relationships that are established between different stakeholder groups and between these and the water administration. On the other hand, the lack of credibility and legitimacy of some processes is related to the lack of political leadership and commitment to public participation, to insufficient inter-administrative cooperation, and to the persistence of parallel channels of communication between traditional water users and water managers. The paper also points to some potential areas of improvement such as the methodological design of public participation processes, a clarification of their impact on specific plans and proposals, and a search for tools to adequately inform and incorporate the wider public in water policy debates. Finally, the paper discusses the role that social networks, built around the ideas and goals of the New Water Culture, are playing in water policy debates by demanding more transparent and sustainable water policy decision making.

Alonso González, Carlos García de Jalón, Diego Marchamalo, Miguel https://hdl.handle.net/10481/21687 2021-06-15T16:33:49Z

Fish communities as indicators of biological conditions of rivers: methods for reference conditions Alonso González, Carlos; García de Jalón, Diego; Marchamalo, Miguel Fish communities are a key element in fluvial ecosystems Their position in the top of the food chain and their sensitivity to a whole range of impacts make them a clear objective for ecosystem conservation and a sound indicator of biological integrity. The UE Water Framework Directive includes fish community composition, abundance and structure as relevant elements for the evaluation os biological condition. Several approaches have been proposed for the evaluation of the condition of fish communities, from the bio-indicator concept to the IBI (Index of biotic integrity) proposals. However, the complexity of fish communities and their ecological responses make this evaluation difficult, and we must avoid both oversimplified and extreme analytical procedures. In this work we present a new proposal to define reference conditions in fish communities, discussing them from an ecological viewpoint. This method is a synthetic approach called SYNTHETIC OPEN METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK (SOMF) that has been applied to the rivers of Navarra. As a result, it is recommended the integration of all the available information from spatial, modelling, historical and expert sources, providing the better approach to fish reference conditions, keeping the highest level of information and meeting the legal requirements of the WFD.

La Roca, Francesc Ferrer, Garciela https://hdl.handle.net/10481/21686 2021-06-15T16:33:46Z

The Water Framework Directive observatory: an assessment of the WFD implementation process in Spain La Roca, Francesc; Ferrer, Garciela This paper deals primarily with the assessment of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) implementation in the Iberian basins. This assessment has been carried out in an innovative way by the Observatory of the Water Framework Directive known with the acronym ODMA after its Spanish name. The Observatory is a project of the Water Foundation for a New Water Culture (FNCA) leaded by researchers of different scientific disciplines related to water, with the involvement of non academic actors, like, for instance, practitioners of the water sector and environmental activists. The paper first describes the organisation and scope of the Observatory in the context of a post-normal science approach. In a second part the methodological outline of the assessment is briefly described. Thereafter, the main evaluation results of the WFD implementation process are summarised. The main findings are grouped following a thematic classification: institutional setting, public participation, ecological and economic aspects and exemptions. An epigraph with conclusions closes the article.; El artículo se centra principalmente en la evaluación de la implementación de la Directiva Marco del Agua (DMA) en las cuencas ibéricas. Esta evaluación se ha realizado de una manera innovadora por el Observatorio de la Directiva Marco del Agua (ODMA). Dicho Observatorio es un proyecto de la Fundación Nueva Cultura del Agua (FNCA) liderado por investigadores de diferentes disciplinas científicas relacionadas con el agua y con la participación de actores no académicos como, por ejemplo, profesionales del sector del agua y activistas ambientales. El artículo comienza con una descripción de la organización y el campo de actuación del observatorio, en el contexto de una aproximación de ciencia post-normal. En una segunda parte, se detalla brevemente el esquema metodológico de la evaluación para, a continuación, presentar los principales resultados de la evaluación del proceso de implementación de la DMA. Dichos resultados se exponen bajo los siguientes epígrafes: marco institucional, participación pública, aspectos ecológicos y económicos, y exenciones. Un capítulo de conclusiones cierra el artículo.