Projects

Sustainable forest management and the development of innovative and differentiated regional products are key points for the MNP and surrounding regions. The ACORNDEW project aims at contributing to these goals, by boosting the sustainability of the MNP oak forest through innovation. In order to accomplish its goals, the project will focus its research on the valorization of acorn and honeydew from Quercus pyrenaica. The project specific objectives are: i) collecting data on acorn and honeydew production at the tree level ii) researching on the variables (climatic and others) influencing acorn and sweet sap production iii) the development of yield models for the estimation of acorn and sweet sap production at tree level iv) the development of a forest simulator allowing the integration of honeydew honey and wood production v) the chemical characterization of Quercus pyrenaica sweet saps and honeydew honey as a tool for the botanical origin authentication vi) the establishment of the Quercus pyrenaica acorn as a rich nutritional source to use in the development of innovative derived food products vii) guaranteeing an effective and enduring communication of the project results to stakeholders.

Agroforestry (AF) is a type of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practice of deliberately integrating woody vegetation (trees or shrubs) with crop and/or animal systems to benefit from the resulting ecological and economic interactions. Based on the economic and environmental relevance of this activity, a consortium of 13 partners from 9 European countries, launch AFINET (AgroForestry Innovation NETworks), a thematic network aimed to foster the exchange and the knowledge transfer between scientists and practitioners in the agroforestry. AFINET will act at EU level in order to take up research results into practice and to promote innovative ideas to face challenges and resolve problems of practitioners. To achieve this objective AFINET proposes an innovative methodology based on: (i) The creation of a European Interregional network, composed of “Regional Agroforestry Innovation Networks (RAINs)”, working groups created in 9 strategic regions of Europe (Spain, UK, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Poland, France and Finland), interconnected and articulated through the figure of the “Innovation Broker”.  RAINs represent different climatic, geographical, social and cultural conditions and they include a balanced representation of the key actors with complementary type of knowledge: farmers, policy makers, advisory services, extension services, etc. (ii) The creation of an European reservoir of scientific and practical knowledge of AF with an end-user friendly access (the “Knowledge Cloud”), where all the information collected and the materials created in the project will be published.  

The Albufeira project aims to improve the coordination of actions that promote and protect the good status of these bodies of water shared by Portugal and Spain, for their protection and sustainable use. To this end, it provides for the harmonisation of methodologies for assessing ecological status or potential and the definition of the measures needed to achieve the environmental objectives set for the bodies of water. It also proposes improving the management of the protected areas associated with these bodies of water, using methodologies that integrate the requirements of the WFD with those of the Natura 2000 network, in order to improve the coordinated protection of the high-value species and habitats present in these shared bodies of water.

Results

The aims of the project are: evaluate the current status of alder decline in the leading-edge of Phytophthora spread in Portugal; characterize alder variability across provenances along the species latitudinal range (covering 12 populations from Sweden, France, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Morocco and Serbia); investigate the variability in the resilience of these populations; propose a novel decision support tool for planning riparian conservation guidelines.

ALTERFOR explores the potential to optimize forest management models currently in use in different forested areas in European countries. The international consortium of scientists and forestry practicioners will examine alternative forest management models in ten case study areas. Each area represents different forest management practices and socio-ecological conditions across Europe. ALTERFOR is a large-scale, collaborative research project funded under the EU’s Horizon 2020 research programme, coordinated by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), and involves twenty organisations from nine countries.

This project aims at bringing together multidisciplinary state-of-the-art knowledge on forest ecosystem models, forest ecosystem management planning methods and non-market forest-services payments mechanisms, to design tools that may help forest policy and decision makers address current challenges to the forest sector. Namely, it will contribute to excellent science by building the interdisciplinary synthesis needed to develop tools that may realize the forest ecosystem management paradigm, promote industrial leadership, and provide the knowledge framework needed to address key societal challenges, namely the increase of the provision of non-market forest ecosystem services and resource sustainability.