The Extended Water Footprint and illegal groundwater use in the Upper Guadiana Basin (Spain)

Tablas de Daimiel National Park is located in the Upper Guadiana Basin and represents one of the largest and most important wetlands in Europe. The long term ecological integrity of this wetland is inherently associated with the maintenance of a shallow groundwater table, namely the Western Mancha aquifer (WMA) or Aquifer 23. The intensive use of groundwater, mainly for irrigation, has led over the last decades to deep socio‐economic changes. Such intensive use has also lowered the water table of Aquifer 23, drastically reducing the flooded area of the wetland and threatening its ecological integrity. A number of plans and measures have been developed and implemented since the declaration of overexploitation of Aquifer 23 in the year 1987. The most recent one is the Special Plan for the Upper Guadiana (SPUG), approved in 2008. This Plan is the main measure to comply with achieving the objective of good quantitative and qualitative status required under the Water Framework Directive (2000). This paper offers a new type of integrated analysis which allows assessing under a common lens the physical, economic and social dimensions of groundwater use in the area. The first objective is to calculate the groundwater footprint of agricultural production in the Upper Guadiana basin and its evolution during 2000‐2008. For this purpose, we have applied the Extended Water Footprint (EWF) methodology ‐a novel approach based on the classical Water Footprint (WF) approach‐ that includes an assessment of the water productivity from an economic and social perspective. Compared to the classical WF, the EWF allows for a more complete overview of the sector, providing new insights for policy decisions (e.g. to define options and possibilities on water re‐allocation in order to achieve both better ecosystem conservation and social equity). The second objective is to use the EWF to compare the existing authorized and non‐authorized or illegal use of water. This allows us to discuss current initiatives by public authorities in relation to the existing frame of water rights

(Table 3) Pollen analytical and carpological record of the outcrop Hölle below Dwadieden Park, Rügen Island

Pollen analyses and 14C-datings were carried out on two late glacial profiles from Ruegen Island, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern at the southwestern Baltic coast. The palaeoclimatic and palaeoecologic interpretations were supported by carpological investigations. The organogenic deposits of the 'Hoelle' outcrop near Dwasieden Park were chosen because of their unique stratigraphic position, which according to PANZIG (1989), lay under a m3m-Glacial Till of the Mecklenburg Advance (W3). The results indicated that the initial phase of the late glacial sedimentation in a relatively small and asymmetrical lake basin (in comparison with the larger Nieder- and Credner lake to the southwest), probably had its origin in the older Alleroed (II a) after FIRBAS (1949). The basal clastic sediments were rapidly followed by peat deposits and later, due to a rising water table, by muds rich in organic matter. The area was covered with sparse Betula-(Pinus) forests having heliophilous late-glacial elements typical of the surrounding areas during the younger Alleroed (II b). With the climatic change to colder and drier conditions at the beginning of the Younger Dryas (III), the vegetation decreased and enhanced erosional processes led to the fill up of the depression with fine clastic sediments. The intense relief differences of the surroundings coupled with high water saturation in the sediments led to solifluction in the m3m-Glacial Till and its placement discordantly over the organogenic sequence.