Smartphone app helps strawberry farmers preserve wetlands

摘要

The wetlands of Donana National Park (Seville, Spain), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are home to more than 6 million migratory birds, a €400 million ($438.6 million) strawberry industry, and one of the worst problems of aquifer overexploitation in the world. Because rainfall in the region is low year-round, demand for water to nurture crops has led local farmers to dig more than 1000 illegal boreholes into the aquifer of the Dofiana wetlands. In late 2014, the European Union called on the Spanish government to address the problem, but the response has been slow.