Dozens of volunteers from the municipalities crossed by the river and from other parts of the province participate in the bird counts.

The program will provide regular data that will help to assess the evolution of the conservation status of the river Dílar in the coming years.

The Dílar river, one of the main rivers of the Vega de Granada, is in a state of considerable deterioration, due to the decrease in flow, channelization, degradation of the riparian forest and pollution of the riverbed and water, among other causes. This situation led the LIFE Wood for Future/Madera para el Futuro project, financed by the European Union [LIFE 20 CCA/ES/001656], and the Delegation of Employment and Sustainable Development of the Diputación de Granada to promote a program of ecological restoration in the most degraded section, which includes about 12 kilometers from its confluence with the Genil River, according to Antolino Gallego, coordinator of LIFE and professor of the Department of Applied Physics at the University of Granada.

To evaluate the evolution of the river’s conservation status and the influence of restoration actions, LIFE has defined an indicator based on the diversity and number of birds present in the riverbed. Birds associated with riparian environments are particularly sensitive to changes in flow and riparian vegetation. In addition, this faunal group attracts the attention of numerous naturalists, both professionals and amateurs.

The professor of the Zoology Department of the University of Granada, Marcos Moleón, and the researcher of the same department José María Gil have designed a citizen science program so that people interested in birdlife, the Dílar River or nature in general can contribute to the collection of information about the bird community that inhabits this river. For this purpose, “three sections have been defined: low, medium and high. In each section, observers must walk 2 kilometers and record all the birds they detect along the riverbed. These walks should be repeated regularly, ideally every two weeks,” says Gil. These data, collected on a voluntary basis by the collaborators, will be integrated into the LIFE databases and will serve to identify variations in the number and diversity of birds over the coming years.

To launch this program, Moleón and Gil met on March 21, 22 and 23 at the Dílar River with the first volunteer collaborators. Thanks to the dissemination made through the Provincial Council, the municipalities involved (Gójar, Otura, Las Gabias, Churriana de la Vega, Alhendín, Cúllar Vega, Granada and Vegas del Genil) and LIFE itself, among other ways, there are already dozens of people interested in participating. The volunteers who attended this first meeting were explained the protocol for data collection, as well as the procedure for uploading the data to the LIFE website. All the information necessary to participate and register in the program can be found on the web page (https://life-woodforfuture.eu/).

Among the volunteers, there are people from very diverse backgrounds, from inhabitants of the municipalities that share the Dílar river to people from the capital of Granada and other parts of the province. In addition, there are different profiles, with special representation of amateur naturalists and university students.

“This exciting program represents an opportunity for collaboration and public awareness. The organizers hope for a snowball effect, so that, little by little, new participants will join in. Apart from obtaining valuable data for the management of the Dílar River, citizen participation is fundamental to alert us to the problems that affect our natural environment and, therefore, ourselves,” Moleón emphasizes.