The implementation of climate-smart policies to enhance carbon sequestration and reduce emissions is being encouraged worldwide to fight climate change. Afforestation practices and rewilding initiatives are climate-smart examples suggested to tackle these issues. In contrast, fire-smart approaches, by stimulating traditional farmland activities or agroforestry practices, could also assist climate regulation while protecting biodiversity. However, there is scarce information concerning the potential impacts of these alternative land management strategies on climate regulation ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. As such, this work simulates future effects of different land management strategies in the Transboundary Biosphere Reserve of Meseta Ibérica (Portugal-Spain). Climate-smart (“Afforestation”, “Rewilding”) and fire-smart (“Farmland recovery”, “Agroforestry recovery”) scenarios were modelled over a period of 60 years (1990–2050), and their impacts on climate regulation services were evaluated. Species distribution models for 207 vertebrates were built and future gains/losses in climate-habitat suitability were quantified. Results suggest climate-smart policies as the best for climate regulation (0.98 Mg C ha-1 yr-1 of mean carbon sequestration increase and 6801.5 M€ of avoided economic losses in 2020-2050 under Afforestation scenarios), while providing the largest habitat gains for threatened species (around 50% for endangered and critically endangered species under Rewilding scenarios). Fire-smart scenarios also benefit carbon regulation services (0.82 Mg C ha-1 yr-1 of mean carbon sequestration increase and 3476.3M€ of avoided economic losses in 2020-2050 under Agroforestry scenarios), benefiting the majority of open-habitat species. This study highlights the main challenges concerning management policies in European rural mountains, while informing decision-makers regarding landscape planning under global change.

The chestnut tree (Castanea spp.) is an important resource worldwide. It is cultivated due to the high value of its fruits and wood. The evolution between Castanea biodiversity and humans has resulted in the spread of chestnut genetic diversity. In 2019, the chestnut tree area worldwide was approximately 596 × 103 ha for fruit production (Southern Europe, Southwestern United States of America, and Asia). In Europe 311 × 103 t were produced. Five genetic poles can be identified: three in Greece, the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula, and the rest of the Mediterranean. Over the years, there have been some productivity changes, in part associated with climate change. Climate is considered one of the main drivers of biodiversity and ecosystem change. In the future, new challenges associated with climate change are expected, which could threaten this crop. It is essential to identify the impacts of climate change on chestnut trees, improving the current understanding of climate-tree interconnections. To deal with these projected changes adaptation strategies must be planned. This manuscript demonstrates the impacts of climate change on chestnut cultivation, reviewing the most recent studies on the subject. Furthermore, an analysis of possible adaptation strategies against the potentially negative impacts was studied.

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The impacts of wildfires are increasing in the Mediterranean Basin due to more extreme fire seasons featuring increasingly fast and high-intensity fires, which often overwhelm the response capacity of fire suppression forces. Fire behaviour is expected to become even more severe due to climate change. In this study, we quantified the effect of climate change on fire danger (components of the Canadian FWI System) and wildfire behaviour characteristics (rate of spread and fireline intensity) for the four major Mediterranean forest ecosystems located in the Transboundary Biosphere Reserve of Meseta Ibérica under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The effect of climate change on wildfire behaviour was supplemented by taking into account net primary production (NPP), hence fuel load. Our results show that the meteorological fire season will start earlier and end later, leading to a significant increase in the number of days with weather conditions that promote high-intensity wildfires, for both climate scenarios. Fuel type shapes how wildfire spread characteristics will unfold. The most relevant changes are projected to occur in pine forests, where a wildfire with median fireline intensity will offer serious resistance to control from spring to autumn. The severity of fire behaviour in shrublands also increases substantially when considering climate change, with high-intensity wildfires potentially occurring in any time of the year. Both deciduous and evergreen broadleaf forests are predicted to typically generate wildfires with low enough intensity to remain within suppression capability. By adjusting fuel load to future climate conditions, our results highlight that fireline intensity in deciduous and evergreen broadleaf forests may not increase during summer, and can even be significantly reduced in shrublands. This study suggests that improved fire planning and management of wildfire-prone landscapes will counteract the effect of climate change on fire behaviour and impacts.

In the World Heritage Côa region, in northern Portugal, agriculture has crucial economic, social and cultural importance. Vineyards and olive groves are part of the economic base of this region, contributing to the regional commercial budget and the livelihood of its residents. Climate change is expected to have significant impacts on these crops, where climatic conditions are already very warm and dry, posing a key threat to the olive oil and winemaking sectors. The present study analyzes the impact of climate change on the potential yield of these two crops over the Côa region. For this purpose, two crop models were initialized and ran with state-of-the art spatial datasets for climate, soil, terrain, and plant data. As outputs of the crop models, potential yields of grapevines and olive trees were obtained for the recent-past (1981–2005) and for the future (2041–2070), under two climatic scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). Results (potential yield) were then normalized, taking into account the recent-past maximum yields and divided into four classes (low, low-moderate, moderate-high, and high). For the recent-past, the results of the crop models present a high agreement with the current location of vineyards and olive groves. For the future, two different types of impacts (positive and negative) are found for the two crops. For olive trees, the results show promising future improvements in possible expansion areas within the Côa region. However, for grapevines, the results show a decrease in potential yields throughout the region, including a strong shift of producing moderate zones to low potentials. Nonetheless, these results also suggest that the negative impacts of climate change can be alleviated by the application of suitable adaptation measures, based on changing certain management practices, even in the more severe future scenario. Therefore, these measures should be carefully planned and implemented in a timely fashion by farmers.