todobarro at the 5th Mediterranean Water Forum

Pedro Miguel Guerrero and Enrique Salvo Tierra attended the fifth Mediterranean Water Forum, held in Tunisia last May.

These forums, which have been held since 2011, aim to seek common solutions for the management of water and water resources in Mediterranean countries. This year’s motto was “Together for shared water sobriety“. It underlines the need for a joint effort to optimize water use in a region of the world that will be increasingly affected by droughts and climate change.

Pedro and Enrique have contributed with the presentation of one of the lines of research they are developing at the UMA, financed by todobarro.

Turning our gaze towards nature

Scientific research points towards nature itself as the key to mitigate and manage the consecuences of climate change. Instead of seeing it as the problem or the enemy to be defeated, we draw inspiration from all the mechanisms and resources that nature already possesses to self-regulate. This is, as Pedro Miguel explains, a vision of ecological restoration through circularity.

On this occasion, the research we presented at the Forum has to do with the need for ecological restoration in watercourses that have been invaded by exotic (i.e., non-native) vegetation to solve irrigation problems, restore ecological flows and recover riverside ecosystems.

As we have said, nature has a series of mechanisms that allow an ecosystem to be in balance. Sometimes imbalances occur in these ecosystems that cause disarrangements and chain consequences, such as the presence of species for which the environment is not prepared, in this case, exotic vegetation that colonizes watercourses, preventing natural water flows, aggravating droughts and decimating the few water resources that are available to us.

Header by Joseph Barrientos in Unsplash