Search Results (13)

Floods are a major threat to human life and economic assets. Monitoring these events is therefore essential to quantify and minimize such losses. Remote sensing has been used to extract flooded areas, with SAR imagery being particularly useful as it is independent of weather conditions. This approach is more difficult when detecting flooded areas in semi-arid environments, without a reference permanent water body, than when monitoring the water level rise of permanent rivers or lakes. In this study, Random Forest is used to estimate flooded cells after 19 events in Campo de Cartagena, an agricultural area in SE Spain. Sentinel-1 SAR metrics are used as predictors and irrigation ponds as training areas. To minimize false positives, the pre- and post-event results are compared and only those pixels with a probability of water increase are considered as flooded areas. The ability of the RF model to detect water surfaces is demonstrated (mean accuracy = 0.941, standard deviation = 0.048) along the 19 events. Validating using optical imagery (Sentinel-2 MSI) reduces accuracy to 0.642. This form of validation can only be applied to a single event using a S2 image taken 3 days before the S1 image. A large number of false negatives is then expected. A procedure developed to correct for this error gives an accuracy of 0.886 for this single event. Another form of indirect validation consists in relating the area flooded in each event to the amount of rainfall recorded. An RF regression model using both rainfall metrics and season of the year gives a correlation coefficient of 0.451 and RMSE = 979 ha using LOO-CV. This result shows a clear relationship between flooded areas and rainfall metrics. Full article

Groundwater is a crucial water resource, particularly in regions with intensive agriculture and a semi-arid climate, such as Campo de Cartagena (Murcia, Spain). Groundwater salinity in the area can be attributed to hydrogeological characteristics, irrigation return water, or even marine intrusion and communication between aquifers. The management of these waters is essential to maintain sustainable agriculture in the area. Therefore, two groundwater salinity prediction models were developed, a backpropagation artificial neural network (ANN) model and a multiple linear regression (MLR) model, based on EC (electrical conductivity) data obtained from official information sources. The data used were the bicarbonate, calcium, chloride, magnesium, nitrate, potassium, sodium, and sulphate concentrations, as well as EC, pH, and temperature, of 495 water samples from 38 sampling stations between 2000 and 2023. Variables with the least influence on the model were discarded in a previous statistical analysis. Based on seven evaluation metrics (RMSE, MAE, R², MPE, MBE, SSE, and AARD), the ANN model showed a sligntly better accuracy in predicting EC compared to the MLR model. As a result, the ANN model, together with crop tolerance to EC, may be an effective tool for groundwater irrigation management in these areas. Full article

Groundwater is humanity’s freshwater pantry, constituting 97% of available freshwater. The 6th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of the UN Agenda 2030 promotes “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”, which takes special significance in arid or semi-arid regions. The region of Campo de Cartagena (Murcia, Spain) has one of the most technified and productive irrigation systems in Europe. As a result, the groundwater in this zone has serious chemical quality problems. To qualify and predict groundwater quality of this region, which may later facilitate its management, two machine learning models (Naïve-Bayes and Decision-tree) are proposed. These models did not require great computing power and were developed from a reduced number of data using the KNIME (KoNstanz Information MinEr) tool. Their accuracy was tested by the corresponding confusion matrix, providing a high accuracy in both models. The obtained results showed that groundwater quality was higher in the northern and west zones. This may be due to the presence in the north of the Andalusian aquifer, the deepest in Campo de Cartagena, and in the west to the predominance of rainfed crops, where the amount of water available for leaching fertilizers is lower, coming mainly from rainfall. Full article

Life cycle costing (LCC), combined with life cycle assessment (LCA), is a useful tool not only to assess the sustainability of a specific production system, but also to assess possible scenarios. Greenhouse pepper cultivation in Campo de Cartagena (Murcia, Spain) has evolved over the last three decades towards a production system that is increasingly respectful of the environment and in line with the demands of European markets. However, it has to deal with changing circumstances that affect production and environmental costs: specifically, the substitution of chemical disinfection of the soil by plants resistant to nematodes, and a significant increase in the use of desalinated seawater for irrigation. The results of this work, combining LCC and LCA, show that it is a sustainable system with high productivity, the costs associated with the inputs are relatively low, it has great socioeconomic importance, and the environmental impacts are low in relation to the greenhouse production of peppers or tomatoes in other areas, particularly if seeds of resistant varieties are available. In addition, it is a robust system capable of adapting to the changes it faces in the short and medium term, while maintaining its sustainability. Full article

Agriculture practices developed since the middle of the last century have led to the degradation of different resources and made it necessary to promote agricultural models that are less aggressive towards nature. Sustainable agricultural growth requires a more efficient use of land. An experimental model was designed with four treatments in the Campo de Cartagena area (SE Spain): biosolarization with manure (BSM), biosolarization with brassicas (BB), solarization (S), and a pilot test (PT). The general objective was to determine by means of rapid response indicators the changes occurring in soil properties as a consequence of the implementation of these solarization or biosolarization practices and their influence on the quality and yield of a lettuce crop. The results show that there was no significant response in the physical and biological properties of the soil. Physicochemical properties such as pHw, and electrical conductivity (ECe), as well as chemicals such as total nitrogen (TN) and the content of some macro and micronutrients, can be considered as rapid response indicators. The highest yields (Yc) and highest commercial quality (Mc) of lettuce were obtained in the BB and BSM treatments (Yc > 23,000 kg ha⁻¹; Mc > 413 g). These treatments resulted in biological NO₃⁻ sequestration and, in the case of BB, salt immobilization (ECe: 6 dS m⁻¹). According to these results, BSM and BB can be recommended for sustainable agriculture and even as valid methods for the recovery of soils affected by salts and NO₃⁻. Our results should increase the feasibility of these techniques in semiarid areas. Full article

Climate change is making intense DANA (depresión aislada en niveles altos) type rains a more frequent phenomenon in Mediterranean basins. This trend, combined with the transformation of the territory derived from diffuse anthropization processes, has created an explosive cocktail for many coastal towns due to flooding events. To evaluate this problem and the impact of its main guiding parameters, a geostatistical analysis of the territory based on GIS indicators and an NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) analysis is developed. The assessment of the validity of a proposed methodology is applied to the case study of the Campo de Cartagena watershed located around the Mar Menor, a Mediterranean coastal lagoon in Southeastern Spain. This area has suffered three catastrophic floods derived from the DANA phenomenon between 2016 and 2019. The results show that apart from the effects derived from climate change, the real issue that amplifies the damage caused by floods is the diffuse anthropization process in the area, which has caused the loss of the natural hydrographic network that traditionally existed in the basin. Full article

Since the middle of the 20th century, irrigation in the southeast of Spain has displayed significant productive growth based on the intensive use of the scarce water resources in the area and the contribution of river flows from the hydrographic basin of the Tagus River to the hydrographic basin of the Segura River. Despite high levels of efficiency in the water use from the new irrigation systems, the water deficit has only intensified in recent years. The most dynamically irrigated areas (Campo de Cartagena, Valle del Guadalentín, Vega Alta del Segura and the southern coast of the Region of Murcia), were faced with a complex and trying future, resulting in numerous companies (agribusinesses) relocating to lease and acquire land in the northwest of Murcia to develop their intensive crops. The general objective of this article lies in the analysis of widespread landscape dynamics, and of agricultural dynamics in particular, in the rural environment of the northwest Region of Murcia (Spain). For this, an exhaustive analysis of the land cover and use transformations is carried out for the periods of time 1990–2000–2012–2018. The data studied come from the Corine Land Cover (CLC) project, carried out by the European Environment Agency (EEA). These spatial data are treated with geographical information systems (GISs) and represented by statistical and cartographic analyses and cross-tabulation matrices that indicate the dynamics of changes, loss and land gain. As the main result, we find that the areas occupied by new intensive irrigation on old rainfed farmland in the northwest Region of Murcia have increased in the last 30 years. Traditional irrigation is disappearing, and the environmental consequences (overexploitation of aquifers and decreased flows from natural sources), among others, are dire. Full article

Agroecosystems provide a range of benefits to society and the economy, which we call ecosystem services (ES). These services can be evaluated on the basis of environmental and socioeconomic indicators. The irrigation cooling effect (ICE), given its influence on the land surface temperature (LST), is an indicator of climate regulation services from agroecosystems. In this context, the objective of this study is to quantify the ICE in agroecosystems at the local scale. The agroecosystem of citrus cultivation in Campo de Cartagena (Murcia, Spain) is used as a case study. Once the LST was retrieved by remote sensing images for 216 plots, multivariate regression methods were used to identify the factors that explain ICE. The use of a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model is proposed, instead of ordinary least squares, as it offsets the spatial dependence and gives a better fit. The GWR explains 78% of the variability in the LST, by means of three variables: the vegetation index, the water index of the crop, and the altitude. Thus, the effects of the change in land use on the LST due to restrictions on the availability of water (up to 1.22 °C higher for rain-fed crops) are estimated. The trade-offs between ICE and the other ES are investigated by using the irrigation water required to reduce the temperature. This work shows the magnitude of the climate regulation service generated by irrigated citrus and enables its quantification in agroecosystems with similar characteristics. Full article

The Mediterranean basin contains many semi-arid environments where aquifers are subject to intensive exploitation, generally to meet irrigation demands. The Campo de Cartagena aquifer is a clear example from such a semi-arid environment, and its hydrodynamic effects have aroused great scientific interest. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the hydrodynamic effects that have occurred in the last century of anthropogenic activity in this aquifer system. This aquifer is subject to intensive exploitation and shows clear deficits in times of drought, with recharge by irrigation playing an important role. This study’s methodology includes groundwater modelling to reconstruct the transient evolution of the aquifer system during the last century, to generate water balances and to illustrate how the evolution of irrigation has, in many ways, changed the aquifer’s groundwater flow pattern. The results delineate the hydraulic communication of the aquifer stratums through specific geological structures, as well as the flow transfer from the Quaternary layer to the Mar Menor and the Mediterranean Sea. The reconstruction of the entire system’s temporal evolution shows a fragile water balance that is supported by surface-water contributions. Full article

The Mediterranean southeastern area of Spain has traditionally been known as the “Orchard of Europe”. This configuration, which is based fundamentally on traditional agriculture in periurban areas, has evolved in recent decades as a consequence of the sophistication of the agrifood processes transforming its landscape. In addition, tourism, the growth of cities, and the impact of the real estate bubble between 1995 and 2007 have configured important alterations which have generated heterogeneous phenomena in these periurban areas. The present article studies this process by analyzing the evolution of the territory and diagnosing its transformation at a large scale. The evolution of three very representative periurban and similar in size environments of this so-called Europe’s orchard will be compared by using different GIS tools: the El Ejido area, the Campo de Cartagena—Mar Menor area and the Huerta de Murcia area. Through the implementation of different territorial indicators, the current issues will be established from an objective and quantifiable perspective. Moreover, possible future scenarios for 2030 will be raised according to the current transformation trends. This approach will lead us to consider the concept of life cycle in the transformation process of a territory. Full article

The scarcity of water in the Campo de Cartagena has limited its exploitation, which is why, historically, runoff water has been used through sustainable traditional practices which have been dismissed by technological advances. In order to demonstrate the potential of this resource at present, an analysis by interpolation of rainfall distribution in the sub-basin of the Rambla de Fuente Álamo-Albujón was carried out (for the intense rainfall episodes of 2012 and 2016) as well as hydraulic modelling of the estimation of surface runoff. In addition, taking into account the future climate scenarios, a projection of the total runoff in the study area was made up to the year 2100. The bibliographic review and the press analysis showed that the traditional use of runoff water has remained in disuse, although there are infrastructures to collect water from floods but with an eminently sanitary purpose. The current model of agricultural and touristic exploitation is giving rise to serious socio-environmental conflicts which manifest in obsolescence. Therefore, the increase in the availability of water with the use of a specific endogenous resource may lead to a decrease in the pressures exerted on the study area. Full article

In recent years, many researchers have devoted their efforts to finding an objective measurement of sustainability by developing evaluation tools based on sustainability indices. These indexes not only reveal the current state of water resources in a given area but also contribute to the development and implementation of effective sustainable water management and decision-making. The great disadvantage of these indices is that for proper application, a number of variables are necessary and they are usually not available in data-scarce aquifers. This study was designed to evaluate sustainability in groundwater resource management in an aquifer in a semiarid zone, using readily available parameters and under a pressure-state-response framework. This methodology has been applied to an aquifer in Southeast Spain with satisfactory results, since the indicators that were evaluated reflect the two main problems that hinder sustainable resource management: the contamination of groundwater by intensive local farming; and the need for external inputs from other basins to alleviate water stress. Therefore, the methodology used can be replicated in other areas with similar characteristics to those of the case study. Full article

This paper presents the design of a new wireless sensor node (GAIA Soil-Mote) for precision horticulture applications which permits the use of precision agricultural instruments based on the SDI-12 standard. Wireless communication is achieved with a transceiver compliant with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. The GAIA Soil-Mote software implementation is based on TinyOS. A two-phase methodology was devised to validate the design of this sensor node. The first phase consisted of laboratory validation of the proposed hardware and software solution, including a study on power consumption and autonomy. The second phase consisted of implementing a monitoring application in a real broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var Marathon) crop in Campo de Cartagena in south-east Spain. In this way the sensor node was validated in real operating conditions. This type of application was chosen because there is a large potential market for it in the farming sector, especially for the development of precision agriculture applications. Full article