Rubén Ladrera

Los entornos escolares son espacios educativos de gran interés para favorecer una mayor autonomía de la infancia en las ciudades, mediante el desarrollo de relaciones seguras y saludables en un espacio sostenible. En el presente trabajo, se ha desarrollado un cuestionario para evaluar la sostenibilidad de los entornos escolares de los 21 Centros públicos de Educación Infantil y Primaria (CEIP) de la ciudad de Logroño. Dicho cuestionario consta de 12 elementos a evaluar, agrupados en 5 bloques, relativos a movilidad peatonal, movilidad ciclista, movilidad motorizada, transporte público y zonas estanciales. Se ha detectado un diseño urbano que favorece la movilidad motorizada en estos espacios, con numerosas deficiencias relativas a infraestructuras que fomenten la movilidad ciclista, peatonal y el transporte público, así como deficientes zonas de estancia lúdicas y sostenibles.

Los derechos culturales, el patrimonio, la diversidad y la creatividad juegan un papel esencial en el éxito de la agenda 2030 porque son componentes centrales del desarrollo humano y sostenible. En este contexto, resulta esencial y prioritaria la formación del alumnado riojano en el mundo vitivinícola, ya que la Comunidad de La Rioja es una referencia internacional en este sector por su gran trascendencia cultural, tradicional, económica y turística. Para realizar esta innovación docente se ha utilizado una metodología de aprendizaje entre iguales con la participación de alumnado de Grado en Enología y de Grado en Educación Primaria, que se encargó de la adecuación didáctica y transferencia del conocimiento en la escuela, mediante talleres relacionados con el vino. Como medida del éxito alcanzado se utilizaron encuestas de satisfacción y un formulario sobre los conocimientos vitivinícolas antes y después de la intervención educativa. La educación entre iguales dentro del contexto universitario ha hecho visibles los conocimientos de cada grado, mejorando así la organización académica en la utilización de recursos humanos y materiales. En concreto, ha permitido mejorar los conocimientos vitivinícolas de los estudiantes, que han valorado satisfactoriamente esta innovación docente, considerándola como un buen método de aprendizaje.

La creciente gravedad de la crisis climática exige desarrollar estrategias educativas adaptadas a las necesidades del alumnado de las diferentes etapas. El presente estudio trata de contribuir al diagnóstico sobre el conocimiento e implicación del alumnado de educación secundaria en materia climática y conocer su evolución respecto a la educación primaria, evaluada previamente. Los resultados muestran que el alumnado de educación secundaria desconoce en gran medida las bases científicas del cambio climático, sus causas y consecuencias. Muestra confusión con otros fenómenos climáticos y presta menor atención a cuestiones locales y especialmente a implicaciones sociales del cambio climático. Se observan escasos avances respecto al alumnado de educación primaria, manteniendo una actitud pasiva y poco comprometida ante este problema ambiental. Los resultados evidencian la necesidad de fomentar de manera más decidida en las aulas de secundaria la alfabetización climática del alumnado, que englobe una mayor formación científica para comprender las bases físicas del problema y una formación social, que permita la identificación de la gravedad de la crisis climática en todas sus aristas y desarrollar actitudes críticas y comprometidas entre el alumnado.

The serious and growing impacts of invasive alien species (IAS) on the planet make it necessary to include this issue with greater determination in educational programs, with the aim of generating citizens capable of dealing with this environmental problem in a sustainable way. Likewise, the management of IAS represents a clear socio-scientific issue (SSI), which gives greater interest to its inclusion in school. At this point, future teachers play a key role, so that their knowledge, perceptions and attitudes on the subject must be evaluated. In order to deal with this objective, a questionnaire was filled out by 400 students of the degrees in early childhood education and primary education of the Universities of La Rioja (UR) and the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain. Our results show that pre-service teachers do not perceive impacts of different types generated by IAS, and they show a clear lack of knowledge about transmission vectors. Likewise, they do not support various control measures, especially slaughter of invasive vertebrates, related to affective dimensions. These results highlight the need to work toward an appropriate integration of this issue at different educational levels, training students and educators, fostering favorable attitudes toward a sustainable management of IAS.

The overall purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge that students have about the ecosystem concept of rivers and their sustainable management. A survey of nine questions gathered responses from 3447 students at three different Spanish education levels (Primary, Secondary, and bachelor’s degree in Primary Education) and six different geographic territories in the Iberian Peninsula. Respondents showed a limited understanding of rivers, much simpler than the ecosystem concept, which was related to proposals of unsustainable management of these ecosystems. Although the results were analogous among territories, undergraduate students had a more complex concept of rivers as well as more sustainable ideas regarding their management compared with Primary and Secondary Education students. This study demonstrates the lack of knowledge transfer between science and students regarding river ecosystems. Current educational programs should be adapted to address, even at early stages of education, the sustainability challenges around river ecosystems.

Agricultural intensification during the last century has caused river degradation across Europe. From the wide range of stressors derived from agricultural activities that impact rivers, diffuse agricultural pollution has received most of the attention from managers and scientists. The aim of this study was to determine the main stressors exerted by intensive agriculture on streams around Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZs), which are areas of land that drain into waters polluted by nitrates according to the European Nitrate Directive (91/676/EEC). The study area was located in the NW of La Rioja (Northern Spain), which has some of the highest nitrate concentrations within the Ebro basin. The relationships between 40 environmental variables and the taxonomic and functional characteristics of the macroinvertebrate assemblages (which are useful indicators of water quality) were analyzed in 11 stream reaches differentially affected by upstream agricultural activity. The streams affected by a greater percentage of agricultural land cover in the surrounding catchment had significantly higher nitrate concentrations than the remaining sites. However, hydromorphological alteration (i.e. channel simplification, riparian forest and habitat degradation), which is closely linked to agricultural practices, was the main factor affecting macroinvertebrate assemblages. We suggest that “good agricultural practices” should be implemented in streams affected by NVZs to reverse stream degradation, in concordance with the European Water Framework Directive (WFD).

This study aims to contribute to the understanding of the impact of Didymosphenia geminata massive growths upon river ecosystem communities’ composition and functioning. This is the first study to jointly consider the taxonomic composition and functional structure of diatom and macroinvertebrate assemblages in order to determine changes in community structure, and the food web alterations associated with this invasive alga. This study was carried out in the Lumbreras River (Ebro Basin, La Rioja, Northern Spain), which has been affected by a considerable massive growth of D. geminata since 2011. The study shows a profound alteration in both the river community composition and in the food web structure at the sites affected by the massive growth, which is primarily due to the alteration of the environmental conditions, thus demonstrating that D. geminata has an important role as an ecosystem engineer in the river. Thick filamentous mats impede the movement of large invertebrates—especially those that move and feed up on it—and favor small, opportunistic, herbivorous organisms, mainly chironomids, that are capable of moving between filaments and are aided by the absence of large trophic competitors and predators -prey release effect-. Only small predators, such as hydra, are capable of surviving in the new environment, as they are favored by the increase in chironomids, a source of food, and by the reduction in both their own predators and other midge predators -mesopredator release-. This change in the top-down control affects the diatom community, since chironomids may feed on large diatoms, increasing the proportion of small diatoms in the substrate. The survival of small and fast-growing pioneer diatoms is also favored by the mesh of filaments, which offers them a new habitat for colonization. Simultaneously, D. geminata causes a significant reduction in the number of diatoms with similar ecological requirements (those attached to the substrate). Overall, D. geminata creates a community dominated by small organisms that is clearly different from the existing communities in the same stream where there is an absence of massive growths.

Impact of potash mining in streams: the Llobregat basin (northeast Spain) as a case study

This study aimed to strengthen the knowledge of Didymosphenia geminata distribution in Spain, and to determine which environmental variables were related to its regional distribution and temporal changes in growth and production in two Ebro River tributary basins (Iregua and Najerilla¸ La Rioja Region). Living cells of D. geminata were present in 40% of the studied sites of both basins but only four of the sites developed massive growths. The diatom is widely distributed only in mountain areas of both basins (above 690 masl), which have low average annual air temperature (8.27 ± 0.28 ºC) and low water Soluble Reactive Phosphorus (SRP) concentration (average value 0.024 ± 0.007 ppm). Massive growths occur in sites with high light intensity, hydrological regulation of river flow and the lowest measured SRP concentrations (below 0.018 ppm SRP). We carried out an intensive spatio-temporal survey in the Lumbreras River (Iregua basin), where the first massive growth was detected in La Rioja Region. The highest cell densities (1.6 × 105 cells cm−2) and biomass values (480 gDWm−2) were recorded in late summer. An increase in solar radiation and slight rise in water temperature were associated with an increase in biomass over time, but always in waters with low SRP concentration, the key factor that enhances massive growth development. The alteration of the natural streamflow in the Lumbreras River by the Pajares Reservoir and the fact that water is discharged from the hypolimnion (which decreases the summer river water temperature) are important factors in understanding why D. geminata shows such an increase in biomass in a Mediterranean river. This paper provides new insights into the importance of different factors controlling D. geminata massive proliferations in the Mediterranean climate zone, where it is assumed that the species should not develop such massive growths, compared to temperate zones where the majority of previous studies have been carried out. We suggest that changing the reservoir management strategy would be a very important contribution to the control of such significant developments

The objective of this paper is to determine the alteration of the taxonomic composition and functional structure of macroinvertebrate community associated with a massive growth of the invasive algae Didymosphenia geminata downstream of a mountain reservoir (Pajares Reservoir, La Rioja, Northern Spain). As the massive growth of the alga disappears a few kilometres downstream of the reservoir associated with the input of nutrients from a nearby village sewage, we may compare the community composition between nine stations in three different conditions: three stations heavily affected by the presence of D. geminata, three further downstream stations without the algal massive growth but affected by river regulation and three control stations (unregulated and without the algae). Results show a significant disturbance of the composition and structure of macroinvertebrate community in sites affected by the stream flow regulation downstream of the dam compared with unregulated streams, but the alterations are more dramatic in the area where the growth of D. geminata is massive because of the total substrate occupation by the algal filaments. Scrapers and others invertebrates living on the coarse substrate are especially affected at such sites. Moreover, an important increase in the relative abundance of chironomids is associated with the algal massive growth, especially in case of Eukiefferiella devonica and Cricotopus spp., reducing the assemblage diversity and leading to the taxonomic and functional homogenization of the community. Changes in the reservoir management (such as releasing the water from surface rather than from the hypolimnion) may be useful to control the massive growth of D. geminata and thus reducing the effects of river regulation on macroinvertebrate assemblage composition. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.