Doñana, as many of the great nature reserves on Earth, is subject to a compound set of stressors. Some of those (e.g. climate change and increased transport of exotic species) have a global nature, implying that control of such stressors is largely beyond control of the local authorities. Other stressors, such as changes in water quality and quantity resulting from agricultural and other practises can be potentially controlled locally.

As impacts of stressors typically combine (often in non-linear ways) the vulnerability to global change may in many respects be reduced by managing the local stressors. An example is the Great Barrier reef where the authorities have decided to strictly control fisheries in order to enhance the resilience of the reefs to ocean acidification and bleaching events resulting from global climate change.

Some of the changes in Doñana involve tipping points. This is likely the case for instance for the invasion by Azolla and for the cyanobacterial blooms. Research in Wageningen has revealed that floating plants as well as cyanobacteria can become dominant when tipping points are reached that are related to both nutrient levels (controllable) and temperatures (uncontrollable).

We will discuss the range of threats to Doñana and place them into this framework, in order to produce a highly visible perspective paper that will help designing strategies for managing Doñana as well as other important threatened ecosystems.