WP3 · Transformative societal change

Stakeholders are co-designers, co-producers and beneficiaries of PRESINMED from day one, so that the change it generates can be sustained after the project ends.

Co-designing, co-implementing and co-assessing Nature-based Solutions raises awareness of their synergies and trade-offs. By assessing final ecosystem services, we reveal the societal benefits of maintaining and restoring biodiversity. WP3 explores the restoration of ecological functions and cultural heritage, the recovery of ancestral local ecological knowledge, indicators of well-being, social and governance barriers, and sustainable business solutions based on people–nature relationships.

Ecosystem services are used as a common, plain language at the science–management–society–business interface. Three user-friendly models, developed with stakeholders, quantify service supply:

Regulating services

Water and snow dynamics with the WiMMed ecohydrological model.

T3.2 →

Provisioning services

Metabolic energy available for wild and domestic herbivores with a pasture production model.

T3.3 →

Cultural services

Niche models of cultural services from AI-annotated social-media photos and Earth observation.

T3.4 →

Tasks

T3.1

Stakeholder engagement

Partners: CNR UNIMOL PNGP UGR UCA UM6P ENFI UC Active: Year 1, Year 2, Year 3

A science–policy working group will be co-created in each site. Literature reviews, online surveys and snowball sampling identify stakeholders and prepare materials for a face-to-face kick-off workshop per study area, followed by individual expert meetings, two online workshops for case-study analysis and a final face-to-face workshop for validation and training. Park managers, SMEs, scientists and national and international institutions will (a) discuss objectives, variables and methods; (b) align the project with real needs and reporting obligations; (c) select case studies; and (d) select the most informative essential variables.

T3.2

Ecohydrological model (WiMMed)

Partners: UCA UNIMOL CNR UGR Active: Year 1, Year 2

Ecosystem functions and regulating services will be assessed with WiMMed, a hydrological model that includes soil and vegetation effects on water and snow dynamics. Watersheds are delimited on a 1 m DEM and characterised by hydrogeomorphic metrics (area, slope, aspect, shape, lithology, snow persistence, soil and vegetation). Near-real-time meteorological data from nearby stations are interpolated, and NDVI, NDWI and NDSI plus in-situ data validate snow and water-flux models. Climate and land-cover scenarios after NbS are compared.

T3.3

Pasture production model

Partners: UNIMOL CNR UGR ENFI UC Active: Year 2, Year 3

A pasture production model — already tested in protected mountains of SE Spain and available as a module of MonitorEO — will be calibrated in each site to produce time series of available metabolic energy (AME, MJ ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹) from precipitation and vegetation cover across bioclimatic zones and pasture types, comparing climate and land-cover scenarios following NbS.

T3.4

Cultural ecosystem services model

Partners: UGR UNIMOL CNR PNGP Active: Year 2, Year 3

Cultural ecosystem services will be assessed by training deep-learning models to identify them in photos and texts shared on social media (Flickr, Instagram, iNaturalist, GBIF…), then modelling their distribution and abundance with Earth observations. This helps maximise synergies between conservation and cultural values, identify conflict areas between tourism and strictly protected zones, and track changes in nature’s cultural contributions over time.

T3.5

Local and international collaboration, participation, training and shared governance

Partners: CNR UNIMOL UC UGR UCA ENFI PNGP UM6P Active: Year 2, Year 3

Knowledge will be co-created and transferred to managers, local communities, practitioners and small production and tourism companies through local demonstrative activities, aiming at long-term adoption of NbS at regional scale. Methods include: mapping irrigated agriculture and livestock; compiling local ecological knowledge on irrigation ditches and livestock; participatory workshops to improve governance; supporting administration–farmer collaboration; co-designing new tourism initiatives and business models; and capacity building on the MonitorEO platform.