Scaling up land-based mitigation in Spain
In a new report we explore how our portfolio of land-based mitigation technologies and practices (LMTs for short) for Spain could become widely adopted.
Ultimately, we’re doing this to develop simulation models that anyone can use to reliably estimate how much carbon could be stored in each of these scenarios.
But these reports also contain some rich and interesting insights about the additional advantages of, and risks or barriers to adopting these practices. You can find some of the most interesting of these summarised below.
What our LMTs for Spain are
Our LMT portfolio for Spain contains the following four land-use practices:
Agroforestry
Grasslands management
Forest management
Afforestation or reforestation
Let’s take a look at the potential benefits of Spain adopting these practices at scale, as well as the risks policymakers should consider.
Agroforestry
The agroforestry systems we studied for Spain are Dehesa systems. A Dehesa (known as a montado in Portugal) is a unique, traditional biodiverse agroforestry system that has been practiced in the Iberian Peninsula for centuries. It include a grass layer, a tree layer and sometimes also a shrub layer – all of which contribute to carbon sequestration. Dehesa farmss are used primarily for grazing livestock like pigs, sheep cows and goats, but they also produce forest products like cork or timber.
The benefits of Dehesa farms
Farmers switching from conventional farming to this sort of agroforestry approach could capture between 1.4 and 43.4% of the total agricultural carbon emissions from the European Union and Switzerland combined. Dehesas reduce the risk of forest fires, erosions, and floods, and are good for optimising resources, biodiversity and – because of their unique beauty – eco-tourism.
Barriers and risks
One of the main barriers to scaling this traditional practice up is cost. Switching from a conventional farm to a Dehesa would require a significant investment. And once the switch has been made, Dehesas also tend to generate less revenue than conventional farming. This means that farmers would likely need access to subsidies if they were to take this sort of approach. But while the European Union does provide funding for rural development in member nations, because Dehesas are such an unusual form of agroforestry, they don’t fit neatly into the EU’s funding categories, making it more difficult for farmers to apply for aid.
Ecosystems services seem promising
One possible option policy-makers might consider would be encouraging farmers to incorporate ecosystem services into their businesses. Payments for these services could originate from private payments by firms buying certificates of CO2 emission reductions – which could help farmers cover their high investment costs.
Grassland Management
For Spain’s grasslands, we explored the possibility of sowing biodiverse grasslands that are rich in legumes. Research suggests that fields like these are both more productive, and have an increase soil organic matter, which means they are better for carbon sequestration. These biodiverse, legume-heavy grasslands could have a carbon sequestration potential of 6.48 tCO2.ha-1.yr-1 for a period of 10 years.
Implementing these more sustainable biodiverse grasslands in Spain could improve biodiversity, soil fertility and contribute to an increase in the quality of meat and dairy production. It could also reduce the risk of wildfires.
But a barrier to this method taking off at scale is a lack of support for these practices from the government.
Forest Management
Spanish forests take up as much as 27 million ha – amounting to 54% of Spain's surface area. Strikingly, for the last 25 years, forest cover has been increasing at a rate of more than 180,000 ha/year – the fastest rate in the EU. This is partly a result of deliberate afforestation efforts and by partly a result of rural abandonment, which a major issue in Spain. Rural abandonment is when people living in rural villages relocate to urban areas, usually in search of better opportunities.
As a result, Spanish forests capture up to 19% of its CO2 emissions, making them central to Spain’s climate mitigation efforts.
Limiting the risk of forest fires
But it’s important to manage Spain’s forests sustainably. Runaway forest fires are a major concern in Spain, so it’s important to clear the shrub layer regularly and take other measures that reduce the risk of fire.
This could also have additional benefits. For instance, making more extensive use of wood and cork in construction, the chemical industry or the energy sector would reduce the risk of forest fires and also potentially lead to job creation, and the reduction of external energy dependence.
Rural abandonment is a concern
But one of the real challenges to improving forest management in Spain is rural abandonment: the loss of people living in rural areas makes it difficult to find people to do this work.
Afforestation
Afforestation efforts in Spain began in earnest 25 years ago, with a focus on afforesting abandoned or low productivity agricultural land. These efforts have been widely successful, resulting in and additional 730 000 ha of forest cover. As it focusses on abandoned or unproductive land, afforestation does not compete with Spain’s agricultural sector for the country’s more prized fertile and accessible lands.
Afforestation has had a positive impact on Spain’s dwindling rural communities, creating stable streams of work, and contributing to the rejuvenation of the agricultural workforce.
The difficulty of scaling up these efforts further is that forests need to be carefully managed in order to reduce the risk of forest fires, and, as discussed above, rural abandonment means its not straightforward to find the people to do this work.