Work packages

WP1. Biological collections.

Responsible: Juan Lorite

Provide data to researchers, managers and the general public.
Create a repository of high quality images of herbarium specimens and zoological collections related to the Sierra Nevada.
Generate parallel collections and adapt the current ones for molecular studies.
Complete the collections both spatially and taxonomically.
Design and develop a virtual tool for different types of consultations depending on the audience (researchers, managers, citizens, etc.).

WP2. Watersheds.

Responsible: Manuel Villar

Weather monitoring
Comprehensive study of the river basin
Continuous monitoring of aquatic ecosystems
Monitoring of (bio)aerosols and anthropogenic particulates

WP3. Adaptive management of mountain forests.

Responsible: Penélope Serrano

Evaluation of forestry practices on biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Monitoring of carbon and water exchange in experimental forest plots.
Incidence of pine processionary.
Post-fire monitoring.

WP4. Ecosystem structure, function and services.

Responsibles: Domingo Alcaraz and Regino Zamora

Key biophysical aspects of ecosystem services.
Identification of biophysical determinants of ecosystem services.
Biophysical assessment and mapping of ecosystem services.
Analysis of ecosystem services interactions.
Prediction of the supply of biophysically based ecosystem services.

WP5. Climate modeling.

Responsible: María Jesús Esteban

Generation of high-resolution historical time series and climate change projections by dynamical downscaling of general circulation models.
High resolution hydroclimatic database, based on the synergy of observed and modeled data.
ClimaNevada.

WP6. Sustainable development.

WP6.1. Historical water management systems in Sierra Nevada: governance, local ecological knowledge and ecosystem services. Responsible: José María Martín Civantos
WP6.2. Agrobiodiversidad e innovación social y tecnológica para las comunidades locales de montaña: el caso de Sierra Nevada. Responsable: Yolanda Jiménez
WP6.3. Sustainable management of tourism in Sierra Nevada. Responsible: Alberto Aragón
WP6.4. Monitoring of air pollution in Sierra Nevada. Responsible: Lucas Alados
WP6.5. Climate change awareness in Sierra Nevada. Responsible: María Jesús Esteban

WP6-7. Knowledge transfer and social participation

Responsible: Regino Zamora

WP7. Artificial Intelligence

Responsibles: Siham Tabik and Domingo Alcaraz

Development of artificial intelligence algorithms for predictive analysis in mountain ecosystems.
Development of Deep Learning models for automatic image classification (morphological features, species, ecosystems).

WP8. Satellite Remote sensing

Responsible: Domingo Alcaraz

The goal of this team is to monitor the Sierra Nevada ecosystems at two scales:

Regional: using free, high-resolution satellite imagery to assess changes in the regional context
Local: using commercial satellite imagery with very high spatial and spectral resolution to support field monitoring of other LifeWatch-ERIC initiatives to assess ecosystem change at reference sites.

Monitoring at both scales will make it possible not only to resolve scientific and management issues relevant to these scales separately, but also to establish relationships between changes observed at the regional scale with remote sensing and at the plot or site scale through field monitoring with other work teams.

The ultimate goal of the system is to remove the barriers that researchers, managers and stakeholders encounter when trying to use satellite information.

Data Integration and Virtual Research Laboratories

Responsible: Regino Zamora