The First Iberian Symposium on Conservation of Spring Ecosystems (SICEF19) is organized by the Catalan Society of Sciences for the Conservation of Biodiversity (BioSciCat) with the collaboration of the Fundació Catalunya - La Pedrera, and the support of the Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica through the Fundación Biodiversidad, as well as the Agència Catalana de l’Aigua and the Generalitat de Catalunya.

The SICEF 19 is developed within the framework of the "Natural Springs Program" of BioSciCat.

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Natural springs have recently been revealed as the biodiversity hotspots of the Mediterranean ecosystem richest in species. Water is everything here, in the Mediterranean ecosystem. Also, for our species. Therefore, springs also make up a unique and essential space for mankind, in such a way that our relationship with them has given rise to a cultural expression of exceptional wealth.

On the other hand, although the fate of a large fraction of Iberian biodiversity seems to depend on them, it is obvious that they are an extremely fragile and vulnerable habitat: the continuity of the hydrological upwellings that make it possible and promote ecologically and biologically natural springs, could be seriously threatened by the effect of climate change. Similarly, other pressures, such as overexploitation and contamination of the groundwater bodies on which they depend, exert a concomitant effect on the degradation and disappearance of the habitat. Moreover, its small superficial representation at territorial scale (from the quantitative point of view) and its evident physical fragility, are factors that underline its vulnerability. Actually, the number of known cases of disappearance of natural springs is increasing, and even the collapse of whole spring systems has often been documented. Nothing is known about the speed of the loss of this habitat and the biological and ecological costs it may entail.

Inexplicably, despite the ecological and biological importance that seems to have the habitat, for different reasons it has remained de facto outside the scope of the European strategy for the conservation of nature and biodiversity, concretised mainly through the Habitats (92/43 / EEC), Birds (79/409/EEC) and Water Framework (2000/60/EC) Directives.

In addition, it must be remarked that natural springs are among the most unexplored and unknown habitats from a biological point of view. Virtually no studies that allow understanding of their ecology and the functions they exercise on the ecosystem scale have been developed. Finally, there is no experience nor adequate knowledge to undertake the full and integral ecological restoration of springs and spring systems.

Consequently, it is clear that the conservation of the spring ecosystem must become a challenge of the highest order and maximum urgency. To achieve this, the scientific community, public administrations, managers and technicians, and all interest groups, including entities and owners, should be warned, sensitized and implicitly involved.

In some way, this is the primary goal of the First Iberian Symposium on Conservation of Spring Ecosystems (SICEF19). Its impulse is motivated by the need to create a scenario of Iberian scope that brings together all the experts, agents and administrations involved in the conservation of natural springs, in which they can expose the advances in the study, the knowledge, the restoration and the management of the Mediterranean crenic systems. In addition, it has the aim of consolidating itself as a forum for debate from which to promote strategies for conservation of the habitat in all areas and territorial scales.

The positive reliefs that make up the main mountain areas harbour the most important and well-preserved crenic systems of the Iberian Mediterranean lands. These domains are mostly integrated into natural areas protected by several legal rules. It is clear that the existence of these areas constitutes a prime opportunity to articulate some urgent and direct improvements in the conservation of the habitat. This is just why this first symposium will focus the debate on the role that Mediterranean natural areas should play in conserving the spring ecosystem.

The Symposium calls for the participation of administrations and public agencies, research centers and entities involved in the legal protection and planning of the water cycle, biodiversity and cultural heritage, and particularly to:

1- Managers and technicians of the state (Water general direction, hydrographic confederations, Biodiversity and Environmental Quality general directions) and regional public administrations (water agencies and biodiversity central services).

2- Managers and technicians of both central services involved in planning and managing units of natural protected areas (conservation, public use, etc.), to which the SICEF19 is especially directed.

3- Environment technicians of the local administration.

4- Scientists who develop their activity in the field of climate change, hydrogeology, fluvial ecology, aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity.

5- Specialists and researchers in the field of cultural, ethnological and architectural heritage related to springs.

6- Environmental / cultural societies and organizations