The LIFE-myBUILDINGisGREEN (LIFE-mBiG) project coordinates two sampling events addressed to know the biodiversity associated with the schools from Evora (Portugal) and Solana de los Barros (Spain) involved in the project

Last week (October 6 & 7, 2022) experts from the Royal Botanic Garden (RJB-CSIC) of Madrid collected and identified samplings of plants, animals and other organisms from the Horta das Figueiras (Evora) and Gabriela Mistral (Solana de los Barros) schools.

In the first educational building, the Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) that are intended to be implemented are not yet in place, so this sampling will be useful to measure the baseline against to compare the results of future samplings to understand the impact of the NBS on local biodiversity. For this purpose, some samplings were collected from the different intervention areas and in other areas where there will not be implemented any NBS. These areas were classified as roofs, walls, pavements and trees (alcoves). For the sampling of plants and fungi, a sweep of these areas was carried out. In the case of animals, some insect traps were set and they were active for at least three days, being picked up on the morning of October 10. For other organisms such as butterflies, birds or reptiles, the sampling was carried out through direct human observation.

In the Spanish school, the methodology was the same used in Evora. This school has already implemented its NBS, so a bigger number of samplings was taken in areas with and without interventions to determine the baseline and the increase of biodiversity associated with the used solutions.

As expected, the Gabriela Mistral school registers more diversity and abundance of organisms, which suggests that the NBS implemented in buildings for their adaptation to climate change provide, moreover, an increase in local biodiversity.

Both sampling events were supported by personal staff from the Intermunicipal Community of Central Alentejo (CIMAC) and the Gabriela Mistral school.

Results from all the biodiversity sampling carried out under the project framework will be available in the “deliverable” section of the project website.

Personal staff from Gabriela Mistral school setting an insect trap on the Green roof of the school © Miguel Vega

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