Foto: rh2010/AdobestockHow do wildfires, water scarcity, agriculture in peripheral protected zones, and tourism interact? Together with colleagues, Glenda Garcia-Santos investigated how these factors influence one another in Garajonay National Park on the Canary Island of La Gomera, home to one of Europe’s last remaining laurel forests. The research team’s findings show that protecting vulnerable ecosystems requires not only ecological measures to help nature recover, but also better cooperation among the people involved.

Garajonay National Park on the Canary Island of La Gomera is home to one of Europe’s most important surviving laurel forests. This evergreen cloud forest is not only a valuable habitat for plants and animals, but also plays a crucial role in the island’s water balance. It captures moisture from clouds and mist, stores water in the soil, and helps replenish groundwater reserves. In 2012, a wildfire destroyed around 20 per cent of the protected forest. The consequences can extend far beyond the loss of vegetation: damage to forest also affects how water is stored in the soil, how moisture is captured from mist, and how groundwater is replenished. Alongside the effects of this major event, the ecosystem faces ongoing pressures. Increasingly dry conditions and changes in land use pose further threats to its delicate balance.
A new study led by Glenda Garcia-Santos (Department of Geography and Regional Studies at the University of Klagenfurt) highlights just how closely environmental and social processes are intertwined. The researchers drew on scientific literature and interviews with a number of experienced local experts. Using an integrated research approach known as Pluralistic Water Research, the team combined document analysis with stakeholder interviews to reconstruct plausible key cause-and-effect relationships and feedback loops between people and the environment. Commenting on the study, Glenda Garcia-Santos explains: “Our analyses show that individual factors cannot be considered in isolation. Longer periods of drought generally increase the risk of wildfires. At the same time, traditional agricultural terraces are increasingly being abandoned. When these areas are no longer cultivated, flammable vegetation can accumulate. Wildfires, in turn, damage soils and vegetation, disrupt the water balance, and make further agricultural use more difficult. These processes can therefore reinforce one another.” Tourism also plays a role. Although the national park attracts visitors, heavily frequented viewpoints, car parks, and hiking trails place additional pressure on the environment through traffic, waste, and damage to sensitive soils.
“The natural processes within the national park are closely interconnected. Under normal conditions, these connections help the forest function properly: water is stored and made available, supporting the stability of the forest. However, when the forest experiences periods of drought or wildfires, these same connections can contribute to damage spreading across larger areas,” Glenda Garcia-Santos explains.
While nature is closely interconnected, the stakeholder interviews suggest that the institutions responsible for managing it are less so, as she points out: “Measures that address individual problems in isolation are insufficient when their underlying causes influence one another. Protecting an ecosystem requires long-term cooperation across institutional and disciplinary boundaries.”
Glenda Garcia-Santos, Britta Höllermann, Prince Dacosta Aboagye, Ángel Fernández López, Mariele Evers (2026). Emergent human-water interactions through the lens of the pluralistic water research approach – the case of the Garajonay National Park (La Gomera, Spain), Frontiers in Water, https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2026.1844384
Der Beitrag When forests burn, the water balance also comes under pressure erschien zuerst auf University of Klagenfurt.