Carles Ibáñez

• Ph D in Biology
• Head of Department at Eurecat

Mediterranean coastal wetlands account for important biodiversity and ecosystem services. But climate-change induced sea-level rise poses a critical risk to their survival. Here, we assess these risks for Mediterranean coastal marshes, one key type of Mediterranean coastal wetlands, and identify main drivers for future coastal marsh change for the...

This deliverable presents the generation of EUNIS habitat maps for Europe as a whole and for each of the pilot areas in REST-COAST. Subsequently, it presents the assignment of semi-quantitative scores for the contribution of each EUNIS (sub)habitat to the five key ecosystem services applying the rank scale 0 (none), 1 (very low contribution), 2 (lo...

Coastal regions provide some of the most productive and biodiverse environments with an important and often underappreciated carbon storage potential. At the same time, they are among the areas of highest population density, natural assets, and cultural heritage in the world, yet are experiencing significant social, economic and environmental chall...

Rice cultivation is popular in low-lying areas such as deltas, but climate change threatens the viability of the crop. In recent decades, the resilience of deltas to sea level rise (SLR) has been influenced by the reduction of sediment load from rivers due to the construction of dams, disrupting natural deposition in deltaic plains. Sediment and or...

Coastal saltmarshes provide globally important ecosystem services including 'blue carbon' sequestration, flood protection, pollutant remediation, habitat provision and cultural value. Large portions of marshes have been lost or fragmented as a result of land reclamation, embankment construction, and pollution. Sea level rise threatens marsh surviva...

This paper discusses barriers and presents recommendations for the effective restoration of riverine and coastal wetlands in Europe, highlighting the importance of integrating initiatives across science, policy and practice.

Trends and ecological consequences of phosphorus (P) decline and increasing nitrogen (N) to phosphorus (N:P) ratios in rivers and estuaries are reviewed and discussed. Results suggest that re‐oligotrophication is a dominant trend in rivers and estuaries of high‐income countries in the last two‐three decades, while in low‐income countries widespread...

Coastal restoration is often distrusted and, at best, implemented at small scales, which hampers its potential for coastal adaptation. Present technical, economic and management barriers stem from sectoral and poorly coordinated local interventions, which are insufficiently monitored and maintained, precluding the upscaling required to build up con...

Much uncertainty exists about the vulnerability of valuable tidal marsh ecosystems to relative sea level rise. Previous assessments of resilience to sea level rise, to which marshes can adjust by sediment accretion and elevation gain, revealed contrasting results, depending on contemporary or Holocene geological data. By analyzing globally distribu...

Aims To assess 1) the effect of the combination of flooding (winter flooding vs. non-winter flooding; WFL vs NWF) and timing of straw incorporation (early vs late straw incorporation; ESI vs LSI) in the post-harvest of paddy agrosystem, on a year-round global balance of greenhouse gases (GHG) exchanges, i.e. methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2) and...

Report available at: https://www.fundacioncanal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Adaptacion_CC_Fundacion-Canal_esp_2022.pdf

Sea level rise (SLR) is threatening low-lying coastal areas such as river deltas. The Ebro river Delta (Spain) is representative of coastal systems particularly vulnerable to SLR due to significant sediment retention behind upstream dams (up to 99%), thereby dramatically reducing the capacity for deltaic sediment accretion. Rice production is the m...

Understanding the effects of sea-level rise (SLR) and marine storms on Mediterranean coastal wetlands is crucial to developing adequate climate change adaptation pathways. Because the majority of these systems are in deltaic areas, integrated river basin management (water and sediment discharge) is a must in the design of such pathways. Rising sea...

Global environmental change is greatly disturbing rivers and estuaries by a number of stressors, among which water withdrawal, damming, pollution, invasive species, and climate change are the most worrying [...]

Coastal and deltaic wetlands are among the most effective ecosystems for climate regulation through carbon sequestration and storage. The Ebro Delta is an example of a landscape that attempts to integrate nature protection with economic development that is threatened by global change. The functionality of Ebro Delta wetlands is deteriorating due to...

The blue crab Callinectes sapidus was first observed in the Ebro Delta in 2012 and since then captures have increased exponentially up to over 2 t per day, while its presence remains low in other Catalonian estuarine areas. Here, we use a stable isotope approach (δ15N and δ13C) to explore the dietary habits of adult blue crab in four different inva...

Salt marshes are highly dynamic and important ecosystems that dampen impacts of coastal storms and are an integral part of tidal wetland systems, which sequester half of all global marine carbon. They are now being threatened due to sea-level rise, decreased sediment influx, and human encroachment. This book provides a comprehensive review of the l...

The vulnerability of the world’s tidal marshes to sea-level rise threatens their substantial contribution to fisheries, coastal protection, biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration. Feedbacks between relative sea-level rise (RSLR) and the rate of mineral and organic sediment accumulation in tidal wetlands, and hence elevation gain, have b...

Purpose To assess 1) the cumulative greenhouse gas emissions –GHG- and global warming potential (methane – CH 4 - and nitrous oxide) from rice fields in the growing and fallow seasons, and 2) the environmental and agronomic drivers of CH 4 emissions, and their relative capacity to explain CH 4 variation. Methods A two-year multisite field experime...

Deltas are a particular type of estuarine system in which the dependence on river flow (water, sediments and nutrients) is very strong, especially in river-dominated deltas such as the Mediterranean ones, but environmental flow (e-flow) proposals for deltaic systems are scarce. The Ebro Delta is one of the largest wetland areas in the western Medit...

Urban, industrial, and agricultural development in river basins has resulted in the pollution of estuarine and coastal ecosystems with a great amount of organic microcontaminants (OMCs) such as pesticides and contaminants of emerging concern (CECs). This study takes the Ebro Delta as a case study to assess the increase or reduction of 25 OMCs in ri...

Deltaic wetlands are highly productive ecosystems, which characteristically can act as C-sinks. However, they are among the most threatened ecosystems, being very vulnerable to global change, and require special attention towards its conservation. Knowing their climate change mitigating potential, conservation measures should also be oriented with...

Phosphorus removal from freshwater systems has wide-ranging ecological consequences

Designing environmental flows in lowland river sections and estuaries is a challenge for researchers and managers, given their complexity and their importance, both for nature conservation and economy. The Ebro River and its delta belong to a Mediterranean area with marked anthropogenic pressures. This study presents an assessment of the relationsh...

Delta wetlands are increasingly recognized as important sinks for ‘blue carbon,’ although this and other ecosystem services that deltas provide are threatened by human activities. We investigated factors that affect sediment accretion using short term (3 years using marker horizons) and longer-term measures (∼50 year using ¹³⁷ Cs soil core distribu...

In the last century, large watersheds in Southern Europe have been impacted by a combination of anthropogenic and climatic pressures, which have rapidly evolved to change the ecological status of freshwater and coastal systems. A comparative analysis was performed for Ebro, Rhône, Po and Danube rivers, to investigate if they exhibited differential...

River deltas are ecologically and economically valuable coastal ecosystems but low elevations make them extremely sensitive to relative sea level rise (RSLR), i.e. the combined effects of sea level rise and subsidence. Most deltas are subjected to extensive human exploitation, which has altered the habitat composition, connectivity and geomorpholog...

The European Water Framework Directive requires the integration of body size characters as an important part of fish-based bioassessment tools for freshwaters ecological status determination. The study of the entire fish community size-structure provides valuable information about food web capacity, food web stability and ecological efficiency of a...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0198081.].

The relationship between flow dynamics and biological communities becomes especially relevant in Mediterranean rivers. Given their natural variability and growing anthropogenic pressures, their low sections are subjected to multiple impacts. The definition of ecohydrological relationships in Mediterranean rivers may constitute a useful management t...

Impact of a reservoir system on benthic macroinvertebrate and diatom communities of a large Mediterranean river (lower Ebro river, Catalonia, Spain) This study included the main hydrogeomorphic categories of the lower Ebro River and aimed to detect spatial and temporal patterns of macroinvertebrates and diatoms communities inhabiting downstream a r...

Paddy rice fields are one of the most important sources of anthropogenic methane. Improving the accuracy in the CH4 budget is fundamental to identify strategies to mitigate climate change. Such improvement requires a mechanistic understanding of the complex interactions between environmental and agronomic factors determining CH4 emissions, and also...

Monthly emission rates of C-CH4 (average, mg m-2 h-1, ± SE) in each monitored commercial rice field (P1 –P15) in the growing season, from May to September (Top), and in the fallow season, from October to December (Bellow). (TIF)

Kellogg’s-LIFE agreement for sampling rice fields. (PDF)

2015_CH4 Ebre Delta Raw data. (XLSX)

Tidal wetlands, such as tidal marshes and mangroves, are hotspots for carbon sequestration. The preservation of organic matter (OM) is a critical process by which tidal wetlands exert influence over the global carbon cycle and at the same time gain elevation to keep pace with sea-level rise (SLR). The present study assessed the effects of temperatu...

El Delta del Ebro (Cataluña, España) es uno de los humedales más importantes y complejos en el Mediterráneo occidental; el 65% (4,700ha) de su superficie total se destina al cultivo de arroz. Los arrozales son una fuente importante de emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI), ya que contribuyen de un 5 al 20% de las emisiones antropogénicas g...

It is widely recognized nowadays that there are at least two different phases of bed-load sediment transport in gravel-bed rivers. However, the transition between these phases is still poorly or subjectively defined, especially at bends in rivers, where cross-stream sediment transport can strongly influence changes in the texture of the transported...

The influence of a thermal discharge caused by the cooling system of a nuclear power station on benthic macroinvertebrate communities was assessed at the lower Ebro River (in Spain). Surveys collected from natural and artificial substrata and conducted at sites before and after the effluent were analyzed and in order to assess changes in community...

Tidal wetlands, such as tidal marshes and mangroves, are hotspots for carbon sequestration. The preservation of organic matter (OM) is a critical process by which tidal wetlands exert influence over the global carbon cycle and at the same time gain elevation to keep pace with sea-level rise (SLR). The present study provides the first global-scale f...

In October 1993 and January 1994, two large floods with peak discharge of 9800 and 10,980 m³/s and total suspended solid transport of 10.7 × 10⁶ and 9.7 × 10⁶ tons, respectively, occurred on the Rhône River. Both floods led to multiple levee breeches in the Northern part of the delta resulting in the introduction of 131 × 10⁶ and 54.9 × 10⁶ m³ of r...

A new data set of bed load measurements in a cross-section at the exit of a river bend is presented. Data are analyzed to identify processes that contribute to the morphodynamic stability of gravel bed meanders. It is shown that boundary shear stress and bed material texture are strongly coupled, resulting in an almost equal mobility at incipient m...

Coastal lagoons of the Ebro Delta (Catalonia, Spain) have been subjected to historical reductions of their hydrological connections with the sea and to freshwater discharges from rice agriculture, with a more recent switch to freshwater inputs from the Ebro River to improve their trophic state. As a result, the seasonal salinity regime in three for...

El arroz cultivado en condiciones de inundación es uno de los principales contribuyentes a las emisiones antropogénicas de gases de efecto invernadero (GHG), en particular el metano (CH4). El proyecto Life + EBRO-ADMICLIM (2014-2018) pone en marcha acciones piloto de adaptación y mitigación del cambio climático en el delta del Ebro (Cataluña, Españ...

The hydrological connectivity between the salt marsh and the sea was partially restored in a Mediterranean wetland containing isolated ponds resulting from former salt extraction and aquaculture activities. A preliminary assessment provided evidence that ponds farther from the sea hosted very large numbers of the endangered Spanish toothcarp, Aphan...

Fish abundances per year and zone. Abundances of fish species at each study year and zone. Each row indicates numbers of individuals within a given fykenet.

Supplemental data in cohort analysis of Aphanius iberus.

Annex I. Temporal changes in the study area. (A) In 1860, the northern coast of the Alfacs Bay (see also Fig. 1) was fully fingered by salt marsh which connected with a much larger lacunar system (nowadays the Encanyissada and Tancada lagoons constitute remaining portions). (B) In 1927 to (C) 1954, the salt pans were already built but the loss of s...

Climate change and sea level rise (SLR) are global impacts threatening the sustainability of coastal territories and valuable ecosystems such as deltas. The Ebro Delta is representative of the vulnerability of coastal areas to SLR. Rice cultivation is the main economic activity in the region. Rice fields occupy most of the delta (ca. 65%) and are v...

The Ebro Delta (Catalonia, Spain) is one of the largest wetland areas in the Mediterranean with 65% of its area occupied by rice fields. Because of the crucial role of rice fields in biodiversity and the regional economy, it is essential to find an optimum equilibrium between wetland conservation and rice productivity. The environmental and agronom...

The hydrological connectivity between the salt marsh and the sea was partially restored in a Mediterranean wetland containing isolated ponds resulting from former salt extraction and aquaculture activities. A preliminary assessment provided evidence that ponds farther from the sea hosted very large numbers of the endangered Spanish toothcarp, Aphan...

The hydrological connectivity between the salt marsh and the sea was partially restored in a Mediterranean wetland containing isolated ponds resulting from former salt extraction and aquaculture activities. A preliminary assessment provided evidence that ponds farther from the sea hosted very large numbers of the endangered Spanish toothcarp, Aphan...

Among coastal systems, deltas are particularly sensitive to relative sea-level rise (RSLR) where the risk is exacerbated because of land subsidence and anthropogenic pressures (e.g. land uses, levees or dikes). RSLR threats deltaic areas with flooding, salt stress, wetland loss and decreased agricultural production. The Ebro Delta (320 km2) is one...

The Ebro Delta is located in the Western Mediterranean (Catalonia, NE Spain), and the delta plain has a surface of 320 km2. Up to 80 % of the delta area has been reclaimed (250 km2), mostly for rice agriculture (210 km2), and there is only 56 km2 of wetlands left. At the level of species the delta stands out for its ornithological and ichthyologica...

Many bird families, including the Rallidae, are characterised by a lack of plumage sexual dimorphism and reduced sexual size dimorphism. In such cases, biometry may still allow the sex of captured birds to be determined. We investigated this possibility in the purple swamphen, a species for which biometric and moult data from southern Europe are sc...

In this communication we present some of the results of the benthic diatom community study. Diatom samples were obtained from 17 sites distributed across the two coastal lagoons, both before (2011) and one and two years after habitat restoration actions were taken to restore (2012 and 2013)

Metacommunity approaches are becoming popular when analyzing factors driving species distribution at the regional scale. However, until the popularization of the variation partitioning technique it was difficult to assess the main drivers of the observed patterns (spatial or environmental). Here we propose a new framework linking the emergence of d...

Major Mediterranean deltas began to develop during a period between 8000 and 6000 yr BP when the rate of fluvial sediment input overtook the declining rate of sea-level rise. However, different authors have argued that the Ebro Delta primarily formed during the late Middle Ages as a consequence of increased anthropogenic pressure on its river basin...

The combined effects of temperature and seawater acidification were investigated across larval stages of the European flat oyster Ostrea edulis, from veliger sizes released by gravid individuals to spat. Simultaneous experiments were also conducted to investigate the potential effects of reduced pH levels on bacterial growth that could provide a mo...

The spatial distribution of benthic macroinvertebrate community in relation to environmental factors was studied along the Ebro Estuary (NE Iberian Peninsula), a salt wedge Mediterranean estuary. Both ordination methods and generalized additive models were performed to identify the different benthic assemblages and their relationship to abiotic fac...

The efforts done in Catalonia (Spain) to assess the ecological status of Mediterranean wetlands and shallow lakes are described. The term wetland includes all shallow lentic waterbodies, temporary or permanent, where light reaches the bottom allowing the development of primary producers at the maximum water depth. Two water quality indexes and one...

The efforts done in Catalonia (Spain) to assess the ecological status of Mediterranean wetlands and shallow lakes are described. The term wetland includes all shallow lentic waterbodies, temporary or permanent, where light reaches the bottom allowing the development of primary producers at the maximum water depth. Two water quality indexes and one...

River-dominated estuaries (also known as salt-wedge or highly stratified estuaries) are transitional water bodies occurring in micro-tidal coasts such as the Mediterranean. Their hydrological and ecological particularities make difficult the assessment of the ecological status using either the procedures for rivers or estuaries. For instance, river...

Aquatic macrophytes are commonly used as the basis for assessing the ecological condition of wetlands and rivers and are considered the basis for some of the best indicators of these ecosystems within their landscape. We review key approaches that utilize plant traits as the basis for water resource assessment, including the floristic quality asses...

Marsh restoration is an effective tool to remove water and soil metals via plant uptake and soil accumulation. However, few studies have attempted to quantify metal accumulation and removal in Mediterranean restored marshes. This study aimed to assess changes in water and soil metals in an oligohaline-restored marsh experiment that was set in an ab...

sochrysis galbana and Selenastrum capricornutum, marine and freshwater microalgae species respectively, were co-digested with sewage sludge under mesophilic and thermophilic conditions. The substrates and the temperatures significantly influenced biogas production. Under mesophilic conditions, the sewage sludge digestion produced 451 ± 12 mLBiogas/...

The role of rice fields as feeding habitats for the two main waterfowl herbivores, Eurasian Coot (Fulica atra) and Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), in the Ebro Delta, a Mediterranean wetland in northeastern Spain, was investigated. Exclusion cages and tethering experiments were deployed within a rice field at the beginning of the growing season (summe...

Several attempts to estimate the suspended load and the sediment deficit caused by the reservoirs have been carried out in the lower Ebro River. However, existing data are scarce, scattered along time and space, and obtained under different hydrological conditions and methods. This study estimate the presently suspended sediment load of the lowermo...

River-dominated estuaries (also known as salt-wedge or highly stratified estuaries) are transitional water bodies occurring in micro-tidal coasts such as the Mediterranean. Their hydrological and ecological particularities make difficult the assessment of the ecological status using either the procedures for rivers or estuaries. For instance, river...

Aquatic macrophytes are commonly used as the basis for assessing the ecological condition of wetlands and rivers and are considered the basis for some of the best indicators of these ecosystems within their landscape. We review key approaches that utilize plant traits as the basis for water resource assessment, including the floristic quality asses...

Nitzschia inconspicua is an ecologically important diatom species, which is believed to have a widespread distribution and to be tolerant to salinity and to organic or nutrient pollution. However, its identification is not straightforward and there is no information on genetic and ecophysiological diversity within the species. We used morphological...

The contemporary distribution of benthic diatoms and their use as ecological indicators were examined in a coastal wetland, the Ebro Delta, as a representative of environmental conditions in Mediterranean coastal wetlands. A total of 424 diatom taxa were identified across 24 sites encompassing a wide range of wetland habitat types (coastal lagoons,...

Our study combines modern foraminiferal distribution from a Mediterranean wetland (the Ebro Delta, NE Iberian Peninsula) and their present-day environmental requirements as a basis for interpreting the Holocene fossil record in the context of the natural and anthropogenic changes occurred in this coastal area through time. The benthic foraminiferal...

Our study combines modern foraminiferal distribution from a Mediterranean wetland (the Ebro Delta, NE Iberian Peninsula) and their present-day environmental requirements as a basis for interpreting the Holocene fossil record in the context of the natural and anthropogenic changes occurred in this coastal area through time. The benthic foraminiferal...

Seasonal effects of waterfowl (Fulica atra and Anas platyrhynchos) grazing on submerged macrophytes (Ruppia cirrhosa and Potamogeton pectinatus) and the mediating role of flowers on plant consumption were evaluated by exclusion cages and tethering experiments deployed in a Mediterranean lagoon throughout the annual cycle. Despite the low waterfowl...

The zebra mussel, Dreissena polymorpha, is among the most invasive organisms worldwide, with well-documented economic and ecological impacts. In Spain, it was first detected in the Riba-roja Reservoir (Ebro River) in the summer of 2001. Although it has been suggested that mussel density determines its invasiveness and impact, there are few studies...

A microalgal growth model has been developed based upon experiments using three species – (Cylindrotheca closterium, Nannochloropsis gaditana and Phaeodactylum tricornutum) – at three different levels of carbon dioxide (provided by aeration with ambient air, ambient air enriched with 0.5% carbon dioxide, and ambient air enriched with 1% carbon diox...

We investigated the habitat use and size structure of the fan mussel, Pinna nobilis L. in the Alfacs Bay (Ebro Delta, Spain, NW Mediterranean). Shore-parallel transects were conducted to assess the abundance, size, and orientation of individuals and to record habitat features along the Banya Sandspit, at depths of 20 to 130 cm. Results showed two d...

Biotic indices developed to assess the ecological status of coastal waters according to the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) often show discrepancies when they are applied in transitional environments. Although several indices have been widely used in transitional waters throughout Europe, there is still a lack of knowledge about their suit...

Eutrophication is now a serious environmental problem worldwide because it disrupts the metabolism of aquatic ecosystems. In the Ebro Delta, intensive rice farming during the 20th century has increased coastal eutrophication and caused ecological and economic impacts. Marsh restoration is as an effective economic and ecological tool to remove nutri...

The lower Ebro River (Catalonia, Spain) has a fish community dominated by alien species in both richness (55%) and abundance (78%). This river stretch is regulated by many dams and its flow was severely reduced by increasing water uses. We found strong evidence that the success of establishment and dispersal of alien fish species in this Mediterran...

River deltas are of paramount importance in terms of ecological and economic values. They are characterized as having fertile soils, and are consequently well-endowed for agricultural production. A significant portion of rice is produced in deltaic areas, especially in Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean. Deltas are particularly sensitive to globa...

The Ebro Delta (Spain) is among the most important marsh areas in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Fluvial sediment reduction by dams in a relative sea-level rise (RSLR) scenario has increased the delta plain flooding risk. The objective of this study was to assess factors controlling of marsh elevation and C accumulation in a Mediterranean oligohali...