Environmental variables.

Values of the physicochemical variables and the biotic indices -IBMWP (Iberian Biological Monitoring Working Party) and IMMi-T (Iberian Mediterranean Multimetric Index)- used to assess the good ecological status of streams according to the Spanish legislation (RD 817/2015), based on the European Water Framework Directive (WFD). The limits established by the Spanish legislation to consider a water body at good ecological status or higher for “Calcareous Mediterranean mountain rivers” are shown in parentheses. For chemical variables, mean values and ranges (i.e. minimum and maximum) are shown. Values exceeding the threshold for the good ecological status according to the RD 817/2015 are highlighted in bold. Asterisk indicate that although the mean values were below the threshold, the threshold was exceeded at least once during the study period. The lowest detectable values for phosphate and ammonia were 0.010 and 0.020, respectively. IHF (River Habitat Index) and QBR (Riparian Forest Quality Index) values, which are not considered by RD 817/2015 to determine the good ecological status of a water body, are shown at the right part along with the percentage of area occupied by agricultural land upstream the study site (AGR). The ranges for IHF and QBR are shown in parentheses, with higher scores associated to better habitat conservation. The lowest values of IHF (<50) and QBR (<50) and the highest values of AGR (≥70) are highlighted in bold.