Recent studies have shown the value of place names as environmental indicators. Until now they have not been applied to the effects of climate change, because verifying such relationship by this approach requires a multidisciplinary analysis and a study area where the anthropic impact has been recent. This study aims to test the possibility in a study area little altered by man until the second half of the twentieth century (Doñana Natural Park, SW Spain), and with a heritage very rich in wetlands. The results show that the desiccation of these wetlands is reflected in the local toponymy, and that in turn this regression is related with the end of the Little Ice Age and with the beginning of warming in southern Europe during the twentieth century. The coincidence of these results with data published for Arctic latitudes reveals-in our opinion-the possibility that certain place names can be used as indicators of recent climate changes, at least in some ecosystems.

The areas of the Iberian Peninsula with Mediterranean climate are characterized by rainfall irregularity. Standard statistical estimation methods provide a limited insight of all the dimensions of such irregularity. Based on different techniques to describe the inter-annual irregularity of rainfall, the authors develop a new method: the disparity indices. These indices are then applied to several historical rainfall series (dating from the end of the 19 th century up to the present) from the Southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Similar rainfall irregularity pattern are found in all weather stations in the studied area confirming their belonging to the same climatic region. The results indicate a relative stability during the first third of the XXth century coinciding with a period of low precipitation and a progressive increase during the last three decades. The use of a new index named Specific Disparity Index has proved be useful in highlighting the irregularity within the rainfall series at each meteorological station. This new index could contribute to monitor future changes in precipitation within the general framework of research on climate change. Although Mediterranean ecosystems are

Variability in precipitation affects annual total records and causes instability in rainfall distribution throughout the year. Our aim in this study was to develop a procedure, based on pluviometric centralisation and dispersion parameters, that is able to characterise rainfall distribution throughout a year of precipitation in a unique, condensed and precise manner. This enabled the evolution of intra-annual precipitation from 1837 to 2010 in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula to be determined. The obtained results showed irregular oscillations of the parameters during the selected period. Specifically, patterns of precipitation in recent decades revealed the following differentiating features: the displacement of the most intense rainy periods to the autumn with a consequent decrease in precipitation in the spring; and more erratic distribution throughout the year with an increase of the frequency of intra-annual dispersion peaks.

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Sousa, A., García-Murillo, P., Morales, J., and García-Barrón, L. 2009. Anthropogenic and natural effects on the coastal lagoons in the southwest of Spain (Doñana National Park). – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 1508–1514. The Doñana peridunal lagoons, located in the southwest of Spain, have been well studied, because their conservation is of great interest. Since 1965, they have also been affected by the extraction of underground water for local coastal tourist resorts. A reconstruction of the evolution of this series of coastal lagoons reveals that, along with the anthropogenic effect, there was a natural effect resulting from the reactivation of mobile dune fronts that have blocked and filled the original lagoon complex—in the period 1920–1987, the lagoons were reduced by 70.7%. These fronts might have been fed by deposits of marine sand during the climatically driest phases of the Little Ice Age in Andalusia, Spain. Therefore, if the frequency and duration of dry periods increase, as well as droughts as a whole, because of global warming, the desiccation and disappearance of the lagoons could become more widespread, not only at this site in southwestern Europe, but in other Mediterranean coastal ecosystems as well.