“The situation is very worrying and the worst thing is that we see no end to it,” comments David Montserrat, technician at the Forest Fire Prevention Service of the Generalitat, about the massive death of trees in Catalonia as a consequence of the drought.
This expert considers that the Catalan forests are in “a catastrophic scenario to which the danger of fire will be added as spring approaches.”
A preliminary estimate made by the Catalan Government through satellite images estimates that mortality can reach more than 10,000 hectares.
As Anna Sanitjas, general director of Forests and Environmental Management of the Generalitat, explains, “all the indicators of the state of vegetation say that never in the last 30 years has the vegetation been so dry in February.”
As she details, “the most critical situations” are in the north of Girona, central Catalonia and the area of Barcelona and Penedés.
After three years of accumulated drought, the water shortage in general is quite “homogeneous and disastrous”, with the exception of the Terres del Ebre, where it has rained.
For its part, Montserrat considers that the line that goes from Garraf to Alt Empordà passing through the coast and the pre-coastal "presents the worst level of deep drought and the most dramatic tree mortality."
As mentioned, many dead trees pose a “danger”, as they can fall due to the wind, spread pests and encourage the spread of fire.
“They are a tinderbox,” she says.
“The entire ecosystem, which the trees support, is in danger,” warns the general director of Forests.
“If we lose 30 or 50 hectares as a whole we have a serious problem.”
Forest masses of Ripoll, Ripollès region (Girona), last November.
Dead trees in El Brull, in Osona (Barcelona), last October.Sergi Boixader
Forested area of the municipality of Collsuspina, in the Moianès region (Barcelona), in an image from May 2023. Jaume Balagué
Trees in the Riells area, in La Selva (Girona), last November. Iago
Forest of the municipality of Centelles, in Osona (Barcelona), last November.
Iago
Trees in Bagà, in Berguedà (Barcelona), last October.
Sergi Boixader
Trees in the municipality of Seva, in Osona (Barcelona), in February 2023.Jaume Balagué
The lack of rain added to records of high temperatures, wind and low humidity, and the abandonment of forest exploitation and management, make up a disastrous combination, which can become explosive when the hottest months arrive.
At the moment, the ravages of the persistent drought are already very evident in the landscape, as shown in the photographs of the volunteers of the Forest Alert project of the Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF).
For Montserrat, "forestry is lacking because the wood from the Mediterranean forest is not competitive, it is not managed and we end up having many trees and shrubs forming an enormous biomass."
This situation means that “they must compete among themselves for the little water in the soil,” the technician details.
Likewise, Sanitjas emphasizes that the “forest emergency” is marked by two major factors: the effects of climate change with this extraordinary drought and the abandonment of the management of forest masses.
"In the last 40 years, Catalan society has not invested in forests, it has focused on urban areas and the forests have grown in a disorderly manner, which makes them very dense, with many trees that do not survive, and they need us to reduce the number of trees to promote survival,” he maintains.
Among the species that are dying the most are pine trees.
The Aleppo pine (
Pinus halepensis),
which is distributed at low altitudes, “is the Mediterranean species par excellence, capable of withstanding the droughts that come.”
However, as Sanitjas warns, “it is collapsing.”
The Scots pine (
Pinus sylvestre
) is a Central European mid-mountain species that is dying in areas at the limit of its distribution, in Central Catalonia and the Pre-Pyrenees.
And the black pine (
Pinus uncinata
), typical of the high mountains, has been in decline for years in Cerdanya.
As Monserrat highlights, "pine trees resist well at first, but the fact of having superficial roots, and the impossibility of losing their leaves, makes them collapse sooner than, for example, oaks."
Leafy species such as beeches, holm oaks, or oaks have more survival strategies, such as what the technician calls “false chromatic autumn.”
In the middle of summer, due to lack of water, these trees can shed their leaves.
“It is its strategy to survive and the following spring it will try again with new shoots,” says Montserrat.
From CREAF, researcher Mireia Banqué states: “We have never seen so massively that evergreen trees like the oak shed their leaves to survive.
They close the 'valves' of the water to the leaves, they become lethargic."
In 2012, experts detected 40,000 hectares with a great decline; this year they predict it will be much worse.
These specialists warn that in a few years several species of vegetation present for centuries in Catalan landscapes could disappear and be replaced by others more typical of a semi-desert climate.
“It is not easy to quantify exact values, it is scary because we are going towards an unknown scenario.
We have trees adapted to a climate that no longer exists, the landscape will eventually adapt and will be totally different from what we know,” defends Montserrat.
Likewise, Banqué predicts that, if there is a large fire, “surely the vegetation that grows will not be the same as it has been for decades or centuries.”
A change in landscape will also entail a change in animal species, which will significantly affect biodiversity.
Foxes, badgers, owls, birds go to small ponds in search of water.
Wildlife cameras installed by some naturalists show animals desperate for a drink.
The disadvantage of flora compared to fauna is that it cannot escape the situation.
“The coast of the Mediterranean basin of the Iberian Peninsula is where there is the most drought in Europe,” says Montserrat.
“If it doesn't rain and we reach summer with this aggravated drought, it will be an unprecedented summer because we have not experienced anything like this.”
65% of Catalonia's surface is forested, and 50% of it is dense forests.
From the Climate Action Department they work to eliminate dead trees.
As they explain, they do it for safety and prevention.
They clear the forest masses that are at their limit so that fewer trees remain and they have a better chance of surviving.
The sources of the Mediterranean region are drying up
The sources of the Mediterranean region are drying up, according to a recent scientific review published in
Global Change Biology
and led by CREAF.
As the Catalan research center points out, this is a worrying trend, since these water points are hot areas of biodiversity and are home to a multitude of species, such as some mosses, amphibians and crustaceans, with an unusually high level of endemism.
Continued heat waves and drought episodes, added to water pollution caused by intensive agriculture and livestock, microplastics or pharmaceuticals, are the main causes of this loss of sources.
According to the scientific publication, 46.2% of 31 sources in Catalonia have dried up since they began monitoring in 2013. “This gives us clues about what may be happening in other places,” warns Marcos Fernández-Martínez, researcher. of CREAF.
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