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Traditional vineyards in Spain are being upgraded to trellis vineyards. A key question is to what extent the transition to trellis vineyards is compatible with the environmental preservation goals in Special Protection Areas. This paper presents a GIS-based model to assess the suitability of Special Protection Areas for the development of trellis systems. The model was applied in a Special Protection Area for steppe birds in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain, a region with the largest concentration of vineyards in the world. The model includes three components: (1) a vineyard structure analysis, (2) an analysis of habitat fragmentation, and (3) a suitability analysis. The results showed that 50.9% of the study area, including 82.1% of the existing vineyards, was classified as suitable for transition to trellis systems. In the remaining unsuitable areas an increase in trellis systems should be avoided. The model is a stepping stone for improving the sustainable land use development of Mediterranean agricultural landscapes. Further research is needed to include wider socio-economic and environmental consequences of modernizing viticulture practices.

Land use has been changing in the last decades because of agricultural intensification and land abandonment which implies deterioration in the optimum habitat structure and quality. Habitat degradation and loss, resulting from changes in land use remain significant drivers of biodiversity loss. These trends are widely recognised and have forced national and international agencies to identify protected sites for natural areas with high biodiversity value. Special Protection Areas (SPAs) are natural zones particularly relevant for nature conservation. Regional planning is bound to play an increasing role in nature conservation policies because much bio-diversity is located in farming areas outside natural parks. A Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to implement a decision tool system to analyse the feasibility of new proposals to upgrade traditional vineyards in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. The study focuses on the sustainability of current farming practices in Special Protection Areas for Steppe Land Birds. This paper presents a model to quantify the resulting habitat fragmentation basing on infrastructure facilities, leading to mapping areas where to apply restriction measures to prevent physical destruction of the habitat.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) represent nowadays one of the most exciting technologies and can be successfully used for agricultural purposes. Data acquisition of environmental parameters by processing satellite images in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and image analysis software is a time consuming process. The use of WSN currently promises to shorten time to acceptable margins. This paper shows the results of a research project carried out in a vineyard of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain, where an experimental WSN was set up, consisting of 12 nodes with up to four different sensors measuring ambient temperature and humidity, soil moisture (water content and potential), soil temperature and solar radiation. Data transmission followed the wireless ZigBee standard, due to its low power need and simple networking configuration. The nodes can communicate with a gateway unit, which can transmit the information to other computers via LAN, WLAN or Internet. The results achieved in this project could help farmers to use this technology in modern grapevine growing. One key milestone was the development of a computer-based information system adapted to the grapevine grower requirements enabling easy data analysis. A better choice of grapes, leading to better wines, is the first step that wine-producers should consider.

Phenological studies are important for understanding the influence of climate dynamics on vegetative growth, flowering and fruiting on plants and can be used in many scientific subjects, such as Agronomy, Botany and Plant Biology, but also Climatology as a result of the current global interest in climate change monitoring. The purpose of the detailed specific culture descriptions of the principal growth stages in plants is to provide an instrument for standardization of data recording. To date, there was no coding method to describe developmental stages on saffron plant (Crocus sativus L.). Because of the increasing world-wide interest on this crop, a novel growth development code based on the BBCH extended scale is proposed in this paper. Six principal growth stages were set up, starting from sprouting, cataphylls and flowers appearance, plant appearance and development, replacement corms development, plant senescence and corm dormancy. Each principal growth stage is subdivided into secondary growth stages. Descriptive keys with illustrations are included to make effective use of the system.

The great expansion of irrigated lands using groundwater has often caused the exploitation of aquifer reserves beyond their recharge capacity. The development of management tools which can harmonize resource exploitation with reserve sustainability is the objective of an interesting experience being accomplished in the aquifer 08.29 in Mancha Oriental, Spain. This paper offers a summary of this ongoing project (GESMO), pointing out the specific role of the Irrigation Advisory Service. The general objective of the project is to create an integrated and integral management system of the aquifer as well as to prepare appropriate techniques for its adequate exploitation. Integral management means that both supply and demand management are considered, including the socio-economic and environmental perspectives. The concept of integrated management implies that the process must involve the majority of economic and social agents affected. Management is founded on a Decision Support System (DSS) which takes into consideration different possible options. The DSS must contemplate the impacts on the environment, mainly the aquifer reserve losses and the increase of nitrates concentration in groundwater. The project directly affects more than 5000 agricultural users, irrigating about 100 000 ha with the aquifer water resources, as well as the whole population living in this region. Results of this project, including irrigation technologies developed may be useful for other areas in the Mediterranean Basin where similar cases occur.

An easy-to-follow methodology is developed for the assessment of regional evapotranspiration in Castilla-La Mancha, a semi-arid region of Spain. The methodology is applied to barley crops to monitor the irrigation scheduling over the region, by using remote sensing techniques supplemented by ground measurements. The methodology can be based on either of two models. In the first one, established by Caselles and Delegido, 1 the reference evapotranspiration, ET o , derives from the expression ET o = AR g (T a ) m a x + BR g + C where A, B and C are empirical coefficients, depending on climatic parameters and determined for each region; R g is the daily global radiation; and ( T a ) m a x is the maximum air temperature. The second model, proposed by Jackson et al., 2 considers the actual evapotranspiration ER = R n + D ( T a − T s ) where R n , is the net radiation, T a and T s are the air and crop surface temperatures, respectively, and D is a semi-empirical coefficient. Both methods were compared with the method of Penman (considered standard), and resulted in differences of ±1 mm d −1 . The developed methodology has been applied to map the reference and the actual evapotranspiration over a 10×10 km area, using the thermal-infrared information provided by the AVHRR (advanced very high resolution radiometer) sensor on board the NOAA (national oceanic atmosphere administration) satellite on a selected date.

Land use has been changing in the last decades because of agricultural intensification and land abandonment which implies deterioration in the optimum habitat structure and quality. Habitat degradation and loss, resulting from changes in land use remain significant drivers of biodiversity loss. These trends are widely recognised and have forced national and international agencies to identify protected sites for natural areas with high biodiversity value. Special Protection Areas (SPAs) are natural zones particularly relevant for nature conservation. Regional planning is bound to play an increasing role in nature conservation policies because much biodiversity is located in farming areas outside natural parks. Agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin has always been highly dependent on rainfed crops, cereal, vine and olive. Vine growing plays an important role not only from the economic point of view, but also environmentally as a permanent plant cover in terms of preventing erosion, managing land and water resources in a sustainable way, defending against desertification an settling population in rural areas. A Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to implement a decision tool system to analyse the feasibility of new proposals to upgrade traditional vineyards in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. The study focuses on the sustainability of current farming practices in Special Protection Areas for Steppe Land Birds. This paper presents a model to quantify the resulting habitat fragmentation basing on infrastructure facilities, leading to mapping areas where to apply restriction measures to prevent physical destruction of the habitat

First paragraph: Irrigation scheduling is the process of defining the most desirable irrigation depths and frequencies. Scheduling provides for the optimal profit on yield of a crop, taking into consideration crop, farming, water, and environmental restrictions [1]. The use of irrigation scheduling is becoming more and more necessary because of the continuous increase in water demand, both in agriculture and in other sectors (industry, recreation, and urban use), when water resources are becoming scarcer all over the planet [2]. These techniques are useful not only to prevent water waste, but also to avoid negative effects of overirrigation on crops, both on yield and on the environment. Although it may seem simple, irrigation scheduling is a complex problem indeed, because the satisfaction of crop water requirements must consider all the restrictions imposed on farm management [3]. Among the particular determining factors of each farm are water availability, manpower and energy availability, characteristics of the existing irrigation system and equipment, legal factors affecting the farmland, and user training [3]. Other determinants to be considered when designing irrigation scheduling are soil factors (texture, water-retention capacity, and depth), climatic factors (temperature, solar radiation, humidity, wind speed), factors related to the crop (crop type and variety, characteristics of root system, susceptibility to water stress and salinity), and cropping factors (sowing time, length of the growth cycle, critical growth stages, tillage, fertilizing, control of pests, diseases, and weeds). Many of these factors are interdependent and may vary both in space and time, thus confirming the complexity in accomplishing good irrigation scheduling. In practice and to be operative, the technique can be simplified with the aid of field sensors, computers, and automation [3]. The objectives may be of a different nature, ranging from technical (including yield) to economic and environmental aims, although they usually are combined. The selection of a particular objective for irrigation scheduling depends on specific needs in each situation, but four main strategies can be noted [4].

This paper is intended to show how to aggregate two different remote-sensing techniques carried out in the framework of the European-Union funded project EFEDA (European Field Experiment in a Desertification-threatened Area). One of these is based on satellite measurements, and the other on aircraft flux measurements. The aim of putting together both methodologies was to determine regional evapotranspiration as a major component of the water balance in Castilla-La Mancha, a semiarid region in southeast Spain. The basis for the satellite approach is using temperature information collected by the Advanced Very High-Resolution Radio- meter (AVHRR) sensor on board the National Oceanic Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) satellite to derive reference and actual evapotranspiration estimates, extending and applying results previously achieved by the present authors. The aircraft measurements make use of the principles of turbulent water vapour transport in the lowest layer of the atmosphere, processing information about the spatial variability of energy and evaporation fluxes along several flight paths across the area, allowing an evapotranspiration measurement useful to validate satellite estimates. The differences between these methods are below 1 mm/d, which is within the range of the accuracy of available methods for estimating surface fluxes on a regional scale.