Welcome to the PRESINMED website
The new home of the project: objectives, work packages, study sites, team and — soon — results from the field.
Nov 9, 2026
March 2025
56% of the project completed
February 2028
PRESINMED
Biodiversa+ · BiodivNBS 2023–2024 · 2025–2028
Preserving the singularity of Mediterranean high-mountain biodiversity hotspots
A Nature-based Solutions approach to diagnose, protect and restore wet meadows and snowbed grasslands across five mountain regions of Southern Europe and North Africa.
Sierra Nevada, Spain. Photo: Bouke ten Cate · CC BY 4.0
5 mountain regions
7 protected areas
4 countries
8 partner institutions
3 work packages
36 months
Why wet meadows?
Small green islands that sustain mountain life
Mountains cover a quarter of the emerged land yet hold more than 85% of the world’s mammal, amphibian and bird species, and Mediterranean mountains are hotspots of endemic plants. Their high-mountain wet meadows and snowbed grasslands are tiny, moisture-dependent habitats that concentrate an extraordinary share of this diversity.
They also deliver services far beyond their size:
- Water regulation in the headwaters, especially during summer drought
- Highly productive pastures for livestock and wild herbivores
- Soil retention, carbon fixation and fertility
- A living cultural heritage of traditional irrigation and transhumance
The challenge
Three pressures, one shrinking habitat
Climate change is turning the winter–summer transition faster and harsher. As snow cover shrinks and summer drought lengthens, wet meadows contract, become isolated in a dry matrix — and the remaining green patches attract ever more animals and people.
Aridification
Rising temperatures, less precipitation and shorter snow cover reduce water inputs in spring and summer, shortening the growing and reproductive period of plants, animals and soil microbes.
Herbivore concentration
Livestock and wild ungulates crowd into the last green patches: consumption, trampling, fertilisation and dispersal of exotic seeds increase exponentially per square metre.
Tourism pressure
Visitors also seek wet, green and gentle slopes, bringing trampling, small shelters, litter and micro-plastics to the most fragile habitats.
Our guiding hypothesis. Warming — and above all the loss of water and snow — will affect wet meadows and snowbed grasslands differently across mountains: ranges with a more temperate, rainy summer should be less affected than those with a more Mediterranean, semi-arid climate.
Our approach
Nature-based Solutions, co-designed with those who live and manage the mountains
We combine field monitoring, remote sensing and artificial intelligence to diagnose the health of wet meadows, and we test site-specific Nature-based Solutions together with park managers, livestock farmers, local communities and tourism businesses.
Traditional irrigation
Restoring historical mountain irrigation ditches — green-blue infrastructures that extend moisture through the dry summer.
Regeneration of endemic flora
Sowing and planting endemic and rare species mimicking natural seed dispersal and recruitment microhabitats.
Herbivory management
Managing grazing as a biotic filter that keeps meadows diverse, using exclosures and virtual fencing.
Where we work
Five mountain regions, four countries
From the Alps to the High Atlas, our sites span a broad gradient of climate, substrate, grazing and tourist pressure — a natural experiment to generalise results across Mediterranean and semi-arid mountains.
Spain
Sierra Nevada
Sierra Nevada National & Natural Park
Portugal
Serra da Estrela
Serra da Estrela Natural Park
Italy
Apennines
Maiella National Park · Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park
Italy
Gran Paradiso
Gran Paradiso National Park
Morocco
High Atlas
Toubkal National Park · Haut Atlas Oriental National Park
Work plan
Three work packages
01 Work package 1
Diagnosis of impacts and vulnerability
Field sampling, remote sensing and AI to assess the health of wet meadows under drought, herbivory and tourism.
Lead: UC · UGR
02 Work package 2
Nature-based Solutions in practice
Pilot restoration, mitigation and adaptation measures under adaptive management, and their trade-offs and synergies.
Lead: UNIMOL · UGR
03 Work package 3
Transformative societal change
Stakeholder co-design, ecosystem-service models and a decision-support tool for scientists, managers and citizens.
Lead: UGR
PRESINMED is funded through the 2023–2024 Biodiversa+ joint call for research proposals “Nature-based solutions for biodiversity, human well-being and transformative change” (BiodivNBS), with the national funders of the participating countries. Biodiversa+ is the European Biodiversity Partnership, co-funded by the European Commission.