The main objective of this project is the application of water resources management to improve the conservation of the inhabited and agricultural areas of the Montseny Biosphere Reserve Natural Park (PNM-RB) through the recovery and historical analysis of data from experimental basins and estimates of the water balance at regional level.

The conservation of the natural heritage of the Montseny Biosphere Reserve Natural Park (PNM-RB) depends to a large extent on an integrated and sustainable management of the land and its resources, especially water resources. Currently, the abandonment of primary activities as a result of the lack of economic profitability and the lack of generational relief is detrimental to agroforestry mosaics. The expansion of forest cover by afforestation of former croplands and pastures favours naturalisation, but in some cases entails the loss of management practices that benefit biodiversity, the capacity of ecosystems to adapt to climate change and alteration of the water balance at local and regional level. In addition, one of the effects of climate change on the PNM-RB will be an increase in atmospheric water demand, both for agricultural areas and for natural vegetation, caused by increasing temperatures and decreasing precipitation and water reserves such as solid precipitation in the form of snow. This will have a significant effect on the increased likelihood of fires, the reduction of flows to sustain wildlife, especially in riparian habitats, as well as a reduction in land yields which will fully affect the socio-economic activities carried out in the PNM-RB. It should also be noted that the PNM-RB has more than 160 unique habitats, many of them forest habitats, and 8,400 species of fauna and flora, including the Montseny newt, an amphibian species endemic to the region. The survival of the latter depends on the availability of water resources and the quality of riverside habitats, which are currently being greatly affected by the effects of extreme episodes such as droughts and for which information is still needed to be able to establish climate change mitigation policies. Therefore, the quantification of water resources, and especially the water balance, becomes a key parameter in the management and conservation of these species and habitats, allowing the quantification of an ecological flow for their maintenance.