F1 Project management by CMAOT.
CMAOT, which is the coordinating beneficiary of the project, will be responsible for managing it. Specifically, CMAOT will be responsible for contacting and sending the planned reports to the Commission, while the project partners will be responsible for providing, in accordance with the planned timetable, all of the information that CMAOT needs in order to meet its obligations and perform its role as coordinator correctly.
The role of the Project Director will focus on ensuring fluid communication between all of the project partners, particularly at the institutional level, as well as facilitating and anticipating those project requirements that depend, to any extent, on the environmental authorities (i.e. the Autonomous Government of Andalusia) or any of its bodies and ministries, especially those that may be able to help achieve the objectives of the project or boost the impact of the project actions. In particular, the Project Director will be responsible for supervising the advances made by the project as communicated by the Project Coordinator and Financial Manager, for detecting any lacks or delays in meeting the objectives, and for securing and organising the necessary resources to address said lacks or delays.
The Project Coordinator will be responsible for making sure the actions are implemented in line with the desired level of quality, for ensuring the timetable is adhered to, and for making sure the project’s technical and informative content remains consistent. To this end, he/she will also be responsible for regularly monitoring the indicators for the implementation of the actions, and for providing the corresponding status reports at the coordination meetings. The Project Coordinator will also be responsible for maintaining direct contact with the partners and project personnel on a day to day basis, and for securing and organising the human and material resources required to implement the actions correctly. Additionally, he/she will be in charge of collating and redistributing the information produced by the partners, particularly with regard to drafting internal reports or reports intended for publication or delivery to the Commission.
The role of the Financial Manager will be to manage the project at the administrative, financial and accounting level, as well as to supervise and audit the activities of the other partners in this regard. These tasks will be carried out in continuous coordination with the Project Director and Project Coordinator.
The LIFE Adaptamed project has three Technical Supervisors, one for each protected natural area. They will perform their tasks in the respective protected natural areas where the main actions of the project are implemented, i.e. the Doñana and Sierra Nevada natural areas and the Cabo de Gata Natural Park. They will chiefly focus on ensuring that the specific measures for adaptation to climate change (principally the C actions) are planned and implemented correctly, particularly in terms of how they are put into practice on the ground. Additionally, they must also report regularly to the Project Coordinator on all of the details regarding the implementation and outcomes of the actions, and collect all of the information that will be required to evaluate the project indicators and draft the reports.
In each protected natural area there will be a Communications Manager, who will be in direct contact with the personnel responsible for the actions related to communication and dissemination. Their responsibilities will include collecting information on the actions implemented in each area and converting it into the appropriate format in order to meet the content requirements detailed in the E actions. They will also be required to perform preliminary checks of the materials related to divulgation and information, and to ensure these materials are consistent with the needs and potential capacities of each protected natural area.
Some of the partners – specifically, the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the University of Granada (UGR) and the University of Almería (UAL) – will form a Scientific Coordination Committee, led by the UGR. Its members will also include the Project Director, Project Coordinator and Technical Supervisors. The role of this committee will be to ensure that data is collected and processed in a standardised manner, and to supervise the integration of said data into the rest of the project actions. The committee will also be responsible for ensuring the quality of the scientific content of the actions and of the tools and materials created.
The content that will be produced as part of this action includes the preparation of inception reports, progress reports (including the intermediate and final reports, with their respective requests for payment) and the project’s audit report.
- The total estimated cost for this action is €564,344.
- The partners involved in this action are the Andalusian Ministry of the Environment and Planning and the Andalusian Environment and Water Agency.
F2 Scientific advice, connection to REDIAM and transfer of knowledge to decision-makers.
This action will be implemented in Doñana, the Sierra Nevada and Cabo de Gata over the course of the project.
The project as a whole is designed to act as a platform for interprofessional collaboration, with the aim of streamlining the transfer of scientific knowledge and developing new forms of environmental management. The teams taking part in this project will be coordinated with a view to fostering multidisciplinary research that is capable of facilitating the transfer of scientific knowledge to the field of adaptive management. With specific regard to the LIFE Adaptamed project, we have the support of prestigious research institutes such as the Doñaña Biological Station (EBD, part of CSIC), the Andalusian Inter-University Institute for Earth Systems Research (IISTA, part of UGR) and the Andalusian Centre for Monitoring and Evaluating Global Change (CAESCG, part of UAL), which boast specialists in all of the necessary fields to ensure the correct implementation of the project actions. The researchers taking part in the project will uphold and apply the philosophy of carrying out and coordinating the research work between a number of different teams. They also have extensive experience of fruitful collaboration with the Andalusian Ministry of the Environment and Planning.
As such, one of the aims of this cross-cutting action is to promote the application of the aforementioned philosophy. This takes the form of designing methodologies that enable teamwork, coordination between scientists and managers, joint analysis of the information generated, and the utilisation of this information in the decision-making process.
Another important aim is to lay the foundations for a network of observatories to monitor global change in Andalusia. In principle, this network will comprise the three observatories involved in the project (Doñana, Cabo de Gata and the Sierra Nevada).
More specifically, this action will have an impact on three fundamental aspects that are present in all of the project actions:
1) Scientific coordination: The LIFE Adaptamed project will strive to incorporate the best scientific knowledge into all of the actions that are implemented in the protected natural areas. The aim is to implement the philosophy of evidence-based management in the decision-making process. To achieve this, it is vital to ensure the support of scientists who possess relevant knowledge with regard to the project’s target ecosystems. It is for this reason that CSIC, UAL and UGR are part of this project. Action F2 will coordinate the involvement of the various researchers in the main actions that are implemented in the three locations. This action will also incorporate the drafting of specific guidelines regarding the types of variable collected, the monitoring techniques used, etc.
2) Information management: This action will adopt measures to ensure that the data and knowledge generated by the main actions and evaluation processes in the three locations will be stored and documented appropriately. Efforts will also be made to ensure that this information is available on the centralised information system created by CMAOT (REDIAM) as part of action C7.
3) Data analysis and contribution to decision-making. The data generated by the main actions and evaluation processes must be analysed in order to identify trends and generate knowledge that can be used to improve management techniques. The aim is to evaluate the suitability of the adaptive management techniques that are implemented over the course of the project. Action F2 involves the coordination of this process, which will be carried out in each of the three protected areas as part of action D1 (Doñana), D2 (Cabo de Gata) and D3 (the Sierra Nevada).
The creation of networks to monitor the impact of global change is a strategy that is commonly used at the international level to address the challenges posed by this new paradigm. There are many initiatives that aim to collate long time series pertaining to biophysical variables, in order to improve our understanding of how the Earth system works. This project intends to take a step forward with regard to this approach: it is concerned not only with generating information on environmental variables via networks, but also with designing, planning and implementing specific actions in the region that promote adaptation to climate change. In short, the project aims to incorporate the concept of adaptive management into the process of monitoring the impacts of climate change.
Moreover, it will help to meet the coordination requirements set out in the Andalusian Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change. This plan clearly articulates the need to foster collaboration between the various actors that are responsible for generating scientific knowledge, making decisions in the region and making direct use of the ecosystem services.
- • The total estimated cost for this action is €171,265.
- • The partners involved in this action are the University of Granada, the Andalusian Ministry of the Environment and Planning and the Andalusian Environment and Water Agency.
F3 Monitoring of indicators.
The aim of this action is collect the information required to update and complete the table of indicators. The indicators are consistent with the actions for adaptation to climate change that are planned within the context of the project, and with the objectives set with regard to the protection of ecosystem services. In a similar vein, indicators will be established in relation to the suitability of the information generated for transfer to other geographical areas, and for replication in equivalent socio-ecological contexts. The action will also include a subset of indicators regarding the project’s capacity to generate synergies between the actors that may be involved in the implementation of the main products generated by the LIFE Adaptamed project (methodologies, workflows, conclusions, action plans, biodiversity recovery plans, etc.).
- The total estimated cost for this action is €5,200.
- The partners involved in this action are the Andalusian Ministry of the Environment and Planning and the Andalusian Environment and Water Agency.
F4 Post-LIFE Plan.
This action involves the preparation of a Post-LIFE Plan, along with a specific document titled “Design for a Strategy to Improve the Future Sustainability of the LIFE Adaptamed Project”. This plan will specify how to continue the dissemination and communication of the project’s results once it has come to an end. The “Design for a Strategy to Improve the Future Sustainability of the LIFE Adaptamed Project” will complement (but not overlap with) the Post-LIFE Plan, and is based on a commitment to ensuring the future sustainability of the project.
With specific regard to the LIFE Adaptamed project, the document will detail the role to be played – in terms of both funding and the implementation of actions – by the project partners and the actors who have contributed to the implementation of the project actions.
The specific proposals for the future will make it possible to:
– Adapt the management mechanisms in the three areas (Cabo de Gata, Doñana and the Sierra Nevada) in order to improve their capacity to provide ecosystem services.
– Improve the project’s connection to the regulations related to adaptation to climate change at the regional, national and European level.
– Dive deeper into the value of ecosystem services and the development of indicators that enable their quantification.
– Promote the concept of adaptive management and protection of ecosystem services in relation to tools for the management of forestry policies.
– Promote the long-term maintenance of the monitoring of the indicators proposed in the LIFE Adaptamed project.
– Design measures and mechanisms that enable the implementation of good practice criteria derived from the LIFE Adaptamed project in protected natural areas, particularly those in the Mediterranean region.
– Coordinate research and transfer activities in order to improve the mechanisms for citizen participation in Andalusia (created in action C7).
– Maintain the synergies and alliances that are created during this project and establish new channels for communicating with other social actors at the regional, national and European level.
– Ensure that the Post-LIFE Plan is wholly compatible with the Andalusian Climate Change Act.
– Promote future measures that may be co-funded via European funding programmes (including Interreg Europe, ERDF, EAFRD, Sudoe and LIFE, among others).
– Improve the mechanisms for collaborating with the Scientific Advisory Committee after the LIFE Adaptamed project has ended, via the scientific bodies that have taken part in the project in the capacity of associated beneficiaries: namely, CSIC, UAL-CAESCG and UGR-IISTA.
– Transfer, to other areas, the procedures to prevent infestation of cork oak (Quercus suber) by the pathogen Phythopthora cinnamomi.
- The total estimated cost for this action is €6,600.
- The partners involved in this action are the Andalusian Ministry of the Environment and Planning and the Andalusian Environment and Water Agency.