María Dolores Carmona-Yáñez

Cities concentrate most of the world’s population and human activities, generating pollution that threatens ecosystem functioning and human well-being. Yet, the relative importance of different drivers shaping urban pollution and the spatial distribution of multiple contaminants across cities remain poorly understood. Here, we conducted a standardized survey across 51 cities in the Iberian Peninsula to quantify metals, pesticides, macrolitter and microplastics. We sampled four urban greenspace types (parks, golf courses, urban farms, roundabouts) and nearby natural areas to link contaminants with soil microbiome structure and functioning.Urban parks, roundabouts and urban farms accumulated the highest metal levels, sometimes exceeding regulatory thresholds, whereas golf courses showed lower contamination levels. Pesticide concentrations were higher in urban soils than in nearby natural areas, especially in parks and golf courses, consistent with intensive chemical inputs. In contrast, microplastic concentrations peaked in natural ecosystems, indicating that regional transport and deposition processes can decouple their accumulation from local urban sources. Macrolitter was most abundant in parks and roundabouts, while golf courses exhibited the lowest densities, highlighting the influence of local management and access control. Contamination indices predicted microbial diversity, community composition and key soil functions. Pesticides reduced bacterial diversity and, together with macrolitter impaired carbon and phosphorus cycling. Metals were linked to tolerant microbial communities with maintained or enhanced biogeochemical ecosystem functions such as respiration and enzymatic activity. This study highlights that land use and management drive soil contamination and microbiome functioning, and that mitigation actions are needed to support EU Soil Strategy implementation in cities.

Intense rain events have become more frequent in some regions due to climate change, and this trend is particularly concerning in dryland regions where the ecological and geomorphological impacts of rainfall are intimately tied to its intensity. The interception of rainfall by vegetation is a critical process in the water balance of drylands; thus, this study estimated the canopy interception capacity and interception rates as well as stemflow of three typical Mediterranean shrub species (Rosmarinus officinalis, Thymus vulgaris, and Macrochloa tenacissima) of three size classes in Spain under a simulated extreme rainfall rate (~8 mm min⁻¹, historical return period of >100 years). Given that these plants' canopy structures markedly differ from taller woody plants (i.e., trees), a novel method was developed to assess the stemflow fraction. Results showed significant differences in interception amount, rates, and storage capacity among the shrub species, with variations in plant morphology, such as shrub height and canopy diameter, being the key factors determining interception capacity. R. officinalis had the highest interception fraction per unit canopy area, or ‘specific interception,’ (18.4%). In contrast, the lowest specific interception fraction was measured for M. tenacissima (6.5%). Thymus vulgaris was characterized by the highest stemflow yields per unit canopy area (4.85 mm) and fraction (up to 29.6% of rainfall), which was the lowest for M. tenacissima (1.09 mm, ~1%–4%). Strong linear correlations were found between canopy interception and shrub canopy diameter (|r| > −0.51, max = −0.90), when observations were grouped for size class. These linear correlations between shrub morphology and partitioning enabled multiple‐regression linear models to be developed that predicted canopy interception and stemflow with good accuracy (r² > 0.64, with a maximum of 0.82) from shrub height, canopy diameter, dry biomass, size class, and species. Despite these measurements being conducted under one extreme storm depth and intensity, the results provide: (i) values of rainfall partitioning for important shrub species in Mediterranean dryland environments; and (ii) a simple but reliable model that may be further developed (e.g., embedding variable rainfall values as weather input or incorporating other morphological parameters) and may be integrated into complex hydrological models.