Assessment of the Potential Risk of Rock-Climbing for Cliff Plant Species and Natural Protected Areas of Spain

Indradatta Decastro-Arrazola,Martí March-Salas,Juan Lorite

doi:10.3389/fevo.2021.611362

Indradatta Decastro-Arrazola, Martí March-Salas + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.611362

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Abstract

In recent years, the popularity of rock-climbing has grown tremendously, setting an increasing pressure on cliff habitats. Climbing may be particularly harmful in the Mediterranean biome due to its appropriate environmental conditions for climbing. A few studies have identified the effect of climbing on plant diversity at a small-scale (namely locally or even just in specific climbing areas). However, no studies exist assessing the potential risk of rock-climbing on a broad-scale (e.g., regional or national). The study aims to identify the priority locations and priority cliff plant species in Spain to focus future study efforts. Spain was selected because it is a plant biodiversity hotspot, with a great diversity of endemic and endangered species, and one of the most popular destinations for climbers. We used a geographic information system-based approach to model the spatial concurrence among Spanish climbing areas (and climbing intensity), natural protected areas (NPAs), and distribution of threatened cliff plants (and their IUCN threat category). We found that 53.5% of climbing areas in Spain are located within a NPA, most of them falling into NPAs of medium protection level. We mapped 151 threatened cliff plants, identifying four medium priority Mediterranean locations and eight priority species in which future research efforts should be focused. High-priority study locations are absent in Spain according to our spatial modeling. For the first time on a national scale, this study identifies areas in which climbing represents a potential threat for cliff habitats and threatened plants. These findings contribute to designing field studies on the effects of rock-climbing on Mediterranean cliffs, laying the groundwork for a sustainable, yet challenging, balance between the protection of these unique habitats and rock-climbing.

Highlights

Human activities are changing ecosystems worldwide, being a major threat to the biodiversity of the planet (Vitousek et al, 1997; Newbold et al, 2015)
We compiled and used a total of 1,183 climbing crags, gathering 111,384 climbing routes in Spain. Out of these climbing crags, 53.5% occurred inside any of the 3,304 natural protected areas (NPAs) in Spain, and the remaining 46.5% are located in natural areas without any legal protection status
Most of those routes fell within NPAs of medium protection level (IUCN category IV: “Habitat/species management area”; Figures 1A,B; see Supplementary Table 1 for correspondence with Spanish categories), which is the most frequent IUCN category in the NPAs of Spain (65.5% of all NPAs)

Summary

Introduction

Human activities are changing ecosystems worldwide, being a major threat to the biodiversity of the planet (Vitousek et al, 1997; Newbold et al, 2015). Sports activities in natural areas such as hiking, trail running, and rock-climbing contribute to this social welfare and increased exponentially in recent decades (Cordell, 2012; American Alpine Club Report [AAC], 2019). These activities are considered to be a key aspect of people’s wellbeing and leisure, but, at the same time, pose a potential threat to the natural environment where they take place (Burgin and Hardiman, 2012). Such a trend could accelerate a loss of biodiversity, the degradation of cliff habitats, and even lead to a loss of recreational amenities (Burgin and Hardiman, 2012)

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