Providing forage for honey bees and sustainable management of surface water

Description: Provision of wildflower for pollinators and wild bees and honey bees, and for the production of honey. Water falling within the premises is also directed to watercourses valleys and/or reservoirs that recharge the groundwater bodies.

Country: Malta

City: Luqa

City size: 676 ha

Population: 5981

start: 2017

Timeframe: 2 years

Phase: Ongoing

Nature-based solutions (NBS) : Yes

Initiator: Malta International Airport

Website source: https://www.maltairport.com

Latitude: 35.8589

Longitude: 14.4886

Co-benefits

Increased provisioning of ecosystem goods (e.g. Food, water, etc)

Yes, through the production of honey from the on-site apiary.

Increased infiltration, water retention and flood protection

Yes, natural regulation of floods and storms via natural retention and absorption capabilities of vegetation and soils, and through the direction of surface water to infiltration basins.

Education, knowledge exchange and learning

Yes, through joint projects with higher education institutions and the involvement of schools.

Original problems

Drought and heat risk

The Mediterranean Region is considered as a "hot-spot" of climate change, having been identified in global climate scenarios as one of the most responsive regions to climate change (Lionello and Scarascia, 2018). There is a consensus in scientific literature that average temperatures will rise across most of the Mediterranean Region, and that precipitation will decrease (Ulbrich et al. 2013; Lionello and Scarascia, 2018). Observed annual mean temperatures in the Mediterranean Region are now 1.4 °C higher than the average late-nineteenth-century levels particularly during the summer months (Cramer et al., 2018).

Reference: Cramer, W., Guiot, J., Fader, M., Garrabou, J., Gattuso, J.-P., Iglesias, A., Lange, M.A., Lionello , P., Llasat , M.C., Paz, S., Peñuelas, J., Snoussi, M., Toreti , A., Tsimplis, M.N., Xoplaki, E. 2018. Climate change and interconnected risks to sustainable development in the Mediterranean. Nature Climate Change. doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0299-2.

Lionello, P., Scarascia, L. 2018. The relation between climate change in the Mediterranean region and global warming. In Regional Environmental Change, 2018, Volume 18, Issue 5, pp 1481–1493. Ulbrich U, Xoplaki E, Dobricic S, García-Herrera R, Lionello P, Adani M, Baldi M, Barriopedro D, Coccimiglio P, Dalu G, Efthymiadis D, Gaetani M, Galati MB, Gimeno L, Goodess CM, Jones PD, Kuglitsch FG, Leckebusch GC, Luterbacher J, Marcos-Moreno M, Mariotti A, Nieto R, Nissen KM, Pettenuzzo D, Pinardi N, Pino C, Shaw AGP, Sousa P, Toreti A, Trigo RM, Tsimplis M. 2013. Past and current climate changes in the Mediterranean region. In: Navarra A, Tubiana L (eds) Regional Assessment of Climate Change in the Mediterranean. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 9–52. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5781-3_2.