The dry season of 2022 has been intense and long in Tierra de Campos, during which the wetlands have remained dry. In October, thanks to the water supply from the Canal de Castilla and especially the rains in December, there was again an extensive sheet of water. This has allowed the field work of the LIFE Wetlands4Climate project to continue in the area during another hydrological cycle.
Thus, between 13-15 December 2022, the field work continued thanks to the team of technicians from FGN and UVEG, and was carried out in two wetlands in Castilla y León, the lagoons of La Nava and Boada. The aim was to close with the last visit of actions D1. Monitoring of the evolution of the rates of biogeochemical processes in the different management scenarios of the pilot trial (vegetation, soil, water) and D2. Monitoring of the evolution of water and soil microbial communities, primary producers and abiotic parameters of water and sediments.
During these days, the experimental plots dedicated to the mowing of marsh vegetation, stripping and fangueos have taken centre stage. In both the La Nava and Boada lagoons, work continued in these plots with different types of vegetation: rush (Bolboschoenus maritimus), cattail (Typha domingensis) and Carex (Carex divisa), and with small-scale stripping and mudflats.
In addition, with the flooding of the lagoons, the waterfowl censuses have also continued for another year, D3 Monitoring the evolution of indicators of the ecological status of the pilot wetlands. In this sense, a specific effort is made in the areas where large-scale actions have been carried out, such as the mowings carried out in the lagoons of La Nava in 2021 and Boada in 2022, and which currently host an enormous abundance in the early stages of the flooding, due to the ease with which many species find it easy to feed on seeds and rhizomes in these areas.
