Taking into account the structure of research lines integrated in the IISTA and with the aim of improving synergies between them in the study of relevant Earth System issues, a structuring in research areas has been established, which is described below. This structure organizes the research activities around the rings of the Earth System and includes a cross-cutting area focused on modeling. This structure contributes to a greater interaction between IISTA researchers in different areas.
Area 1: Atmosphere
Area managers: Prof. Lucas Alados Arboledas, Profa. Gloria Titos. Research lines:
- Tracking of greenhouse gas exchanges between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere (PAIDI RNM130)
- Aerosol, clouds and atmospheric radiation (PAIDI RNM119)
The increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations during the industrial era is causing climate change associated with global warming. As a result, annual global temperatures have risen by 0.8ºC over the last 50 years and projections indicate further increases of between 2 and 4.5ºC by the end of this century. In this context, in addition to reducing emissions, it is essential to identify and quantify the sinks of these gases. Thus, the characterization of the global carbon cycle in the different terrestrial ecosystems and its determining processes has become, for several decades, an essential milestone for promoting climate change management policies.
Atmospheric aerosol is defined as a suspension of solid and/or liquid particles in the atmosphere, and has an important impact on regional and global climate due to both its direct and indirect effects on radiation. Aerosol particles directly affect the Atmosphere-Earth energy balance by scattering solar radiation and absorbing solar and terrestrial infrared radiation. Indirectly they also affect the Atmosphere-Earth energy balance by modifying microphysical properties of clouds as they play the role of condensation nuclei and glaciogenic nuclei.
Area 2: Biosphere
Area managers: Prof. Julio Manuel Alcántara Gámez, Prof. Penélope Serrano Ortiz. Research lines:
- Monitoring, information management and simulation of ecological processes in Mediterranean mountains (PAIDI RNM220)
- Socio-Ecosystem Assessment and Restoration (PAIDI RNM360)
- Plant Phenology and Aerobiology (PAIDI RNM130)
- Ecology, Evolution and Conservation of Mediterranean Vegetation (PAIDI RNM354)
Mountain environments are of great interest as laboratories for the study of global change. The concentration of altitudinal gradients in a reduced space makes mountains places with high biological and land use diversity. This group focuses its efforts on designing mechanisms to monitor the impact of global change on these unique ecosystems. Among these mechanisms are wireless sensory devices that allow the capture of information in an autonomous manner. The information collected is used to generate spatially explicit models that describe the structure and functioning of these ecosystems. Digital tools are also developed to transform the information generated into useful knowledge for the decision-making process. Tools from ecoinformatics are fundamental in this process.
The generation of knowledge related to the evaluation, management and restoration of agricultural and forest ecosystems that allow their environmental, social and economic sustainability, and supported by the use of new technologies for the acquisition and processing of information, as well as the transfer of results that allow innovation processes in the forestry, agronomic and environmental sector.
The phenological and aerobiological behavior of plants of agricultural, forestry or environmental health interest. It has databases that offer knowledge on phenological behavior and response under different meteorological conditions, with special interest in the study of the content of pollen grains and fungal spores in the air, as well as in prediction models in fruit formation, with special interest in plants with both agricultural and forestry interest. In the Mediterranean area, highly threatened by climate change, historical databases allow us to know and predict the behavior of the plant environment under different scenarios during the last decades. On the other hand, within this area, studies are carried out on the phenological behavior of ornamental species, on Urban Ecology, and the role of the design of green spaces in environmental health.
The ecological mechanisms of coexistence of woody species in natural Mediterranean ecosystems. This area combines real information on plant-plant interaction networks with mathematical models of vegetation dynamics, which allows us to assess the possible effects of global change processes on the maintenance of plant diversity in Mediterranean forests. (3) Evolutionary Ecology and Functional Genomics in plants. It studies three aspects. A) Adaptive significance of polyploidy in the Brachypodium distachyon complex and its importance in the evolution of functional traits of tolerance to drought and competition in a model plant for grasses and cereals. B) Ecogenomics of the olive tree and its functionality in pest control. C) Genetics of traits of ecological and agronomic interest (mating system, seed fat content and herbicide resistance) in Sinapis alba.
Area 3: Water-land interaction
Area managers: Prof. María Cristina Aguilar Porro, Prof. Manuel Díez Minguito. Research lines:
- Hydrological processes and water quality in Mediterranean basins. Integrated management (PAIDI TEP248)
- Processes and evolution of continental shelf and littoral systems (PAIDI TEP209)
- Integral management of infrastructures and resources (PAIDI TEP209)
Human intervention in the hydrological cycle through the modification of land use, agricultural practices, construction of reservoirs and, in short, water resource management activities, often requires the availability of techniques and tools that facilitate the evaluation of these actions and the forecast of their short and long-term consequences, so that actions can be taken to preserve, protect and improve the quality of the environment. For this reason, the River Dynamics and Hydrology Group is committed to an integrated management point of view, in which the different variables that affect each of the processes that take place in the basin system are framed, at a distributed scale, while analyzing the behavior of water and associated substances at a small scale.
Water resources management is no stranger to coastal zones. Coastal systems are complex areas of the Earth System where interactions occur between the sea, rivers, atmosphere and biota. Shallow seas and estuaries are considered among the terrestrial environments with the highest rates of biological productivity. Beaches and salt marshes play a crucial role as natural flood defenses. All these coastal systems are key to preserving the environmental richness of our planet, but they are highly vulnerable and many of them are close to collapse. Society needs a multidisciplinary scientific-technical knowledge of the environment and its processes in order to implement comprehensive, integrated and coordinated management strategies in these areas. Currently, the Environmental Flow Dynamics Group of the UGR is developing research related to the study of bio-morpho-hydrodynamic processes in coastal, estuarine and fluvial systems, with a strong vocation to transfer knowledge to society in the current context of global change.
The need to incorporate the most current knowledge into management includes the interactions between the environment and infrastructure and resources, whether natural or artificial. Soil, water and energy resources are finite and must be properly managed to avoid collapse. Today’s society is facing and will face in the coming decades the adaptation of civil and energy infrastructures to the effects of climate change, ensuring their adequate reliability, functionality and operability. These principles are equally applicable to natural infrastructures currently threatened by both human action and climate variability. Within the framework of the Earth System and with the precise knowledge of the processes involved, the Environmental Flow Dynamics Group of the UGR researches in the optimization of renewable energy devices with low environmental impact; in the development of tools for the evaluation of climate trends and management that consider the variability of natural processes and their uncertainty; and in the proposal of innovative engineering solutions for port areas and other marine infrastructures.
Area 4: Earth System Modeling
Area managers: Prof. María Jesús Esteban Parra, Prof. David Pozo Vázquez. Lines of Research:
- Fluid mechanics (PAIDI TEP235)
- Modeling of the atmosphere and solar radiation (PAIDI TEP220)
- Climate modeling (PAIDI TEP119)
The Weather and Research model (WRF) is very useful in the study of climate change projections at high spatial resolution, with special emphasis on the impacts of climate change on the hydrological cycle. Current research focuses on (1) the added value of dynamic downscaling for decadal climate predictions, in particular, through the initialization of soil moisture conditions and the analysis of atmosphere-land interactions relevant to decadal predictions, and (2) the realization of very high resolution climate projections using the WRF as a convection model, allowing a better representation of micro-synoptic scale processes and aiming to obtain better estimates of extreme events, in particular for the Sierra Nevada area, where these simulations can provide appreciable information on some finer scale processes. Another new research topic aligned with these very high resolution simulations is (3) the use of WRF-Chem to study the impact of pollution, including bioaerosols such as pollen.
In addition, the Weather and Research model (WRF) is a powerful tool in the evaluation of renewable energy resources (solar and wind), analyzing their spatial and temporal complementarity. With this type of tool it is possible to develop optimal scenarios for the penetration of renewable energies in the electrical system, studying their relationship with demand and the costs of integration into the grid. Within this modeling area, methodologies are developed for the prediction of the solar resource on scales from hours to days, supported by instrumental measurements, cloud camera images, satellite images and the WRF model.
The mass transfer phenomenon that takes place in many natural and industrial processes depends to a large extent on the contact surface that is generated between two immiscible fluids. For example, in liquid-liquid or gas-liquid separators, the adsorption of chemical species is determined by the distribution of droplet/bubble sizes in which one fluid is dispersed within the other. In aeration processes such as those that occur naturally during the interaction of the atmosphere and the oceans, the uptake of carbon dioxide, and many other water-soluble species, depends on the amount of air ingested by wave action, and the distribution of bubbles resulting from the subsequent turbulent breakup of that air mass. Therefore, in order to develop predictive models of these natural and engineering processes, it is essential to know and describe the phenomenon of droplet and bubble formation in immiscible liquids.