A team from the ICBiBE, together with scientists from five European countries, claim the restoration of wetlands in the face of episodes such as the DANA

Biodiversity and climate research groups from five European countries, within the Wetland4Change project, a Euro-MED initiative, have called for the conservation and restoration of wetlands to cope with extreme events caused by global warming such as the recent Valencia DANA

Professor of Ecology at the Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology (ICBiBE), housed in the University of Valencia Science Park, Antonio Camacho, principal investigator at the University of Valencia of the Wetland4Change project, explains that “ecosystems, especially aquatic ecosystems offer ecosystem services to society without which human welfare would not be possible”, and highlights ”the role that the Albufera and its natural environment have played to dissipate the flooding caused by the DANA that València and l'Horta Sur suffered a month ago. Thanks to the wetland, the flow was able to drain and spread over a wide area of the lake and rice fields”.

On a more global scale, Camacho pointed out that ecologically healthier marshes “contribute to reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and, therefore, help to mitigate climate change”.

The University of Valencia has organized this week a technical meeting on the restoration of the Natural Park of l'Albufera de Valencia, one of the five wetlands of international recognition Ramsar that are studied in Wetland4Change, along with marshes of France, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria.

The general coordinator of the project, Petar Petrov, professor at the University of Forestry of Sofia (Bulgaria), has argued that the initiative “brings together experiences from five countries of the Mediterranean basin in order to develop new strategies and methodologies to prevent floods and increase carbon sequestration”.

This workshop, organized by members of the Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology of the University of Valencia, concludes this Thursday after three days of scientific debates and study of several ecosystems of l'Albufera, some of them affected by the Dana catastrophe.

Wetland4Change is a Euro-MED initiative focused on the application and validation of nature-based solutions for wetland conservation and restoration to improve climate change adaptation and mitigation throughout the Mediterranean region.