Cultural Ecosystem Services—Key to Address Pressing Environmental Concerns of Climate Change and Biodiversity Decline

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamaljit K Sangha
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽  
Biodiversity Decline

scholarly journals National natural heritage at risk: The Seven Rila Lakes

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 67-80
Author(s):  
Mariyana Nikolova ◽  
Peter Nojarov ◽  
Stoyan Nedkov
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Protected Area ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
High Mountain ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽  
Lake Ecosystems ◽  
Natural Heritage

The area of the Seven Rila Lakes is situated in the North-West part of the Rila Mountain at an altitude between 2100 and 2500 m a.s.l. within the borders of Rila National Park. There are 140 glacial lakes in Rila Mountain but the area of the Seven Rila Lakes is the most visited and famous with its natural beauty and sacred significance. It is a valuable part of the national natural heritage. The popularity of this area grows constantly with the number of visitors from the country and abroad. This process leads to the deterioration of the natural conditions in the site. At the same time, it is not clear what is the effect of climate change on the environment in the lake’s area. There are many factors that contribute to the degradation of ecosystems in the protected area of the Seven Rila Lakes and pose risk to this valuable natural heritage. These factors are natural (mainly climate change-related), anthropogenic (associated with the excessive tourist pressures on the ecosystems in the protected area), and management (stemming from the ongoing conservation policy over the years). This study explores to what extent climate change may put at risk the ecosystems of Seven Rila Lakes. Mean monthly data from The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA5-Land reanalysis were used in this study. The resolution of these data is 0.1 x 0.1 (9 x 9 km) and their period is 1981-2020. Reanalysis data include air temperature, precipitation, evaporation, snow depth, etc. Based on data from various sources such as reanalysis data, in situ measurements, and statistical modeling, a scenario, based on current trends in different climatic elements, has been developed in order to project future changes and their impact on lake ecosystems. The results of the modelling of climate change show that in the coming decades an increase in temperature is expected in the high mountain regions of South-western Bulgaria and in particular in the Seven Rila Lakes area. This, combined with the ever-increasing flow of tourists, and high demand for the provided cultural ecosystem services, and insufficient management practices, put at risk the state of the lakes and their capacity to provide the same quality of cultural ecosystem services in the future, which attracts tourists in the area now. Recommendations have been made for the optimization of the management of the protected area in accordance with the observed trends.

scholarly journals Swiss alpine summer farming: current status and future development under climate change

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Herzog ◽  
Irmi Seidl
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Ecological Status ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Future Trends ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽  
Mountain Regions ◽  
European Mountain ◽  
Summer Farm

High altitude grazing is widespread around the globe and also has a long tradition in European mountain regions. One-third of the Swiss farmland consists of summer pastures: seasonally used marginal pastures without permanent settlements, which extend between the grasslands and forests of permanent mountain settlements and unproductive mountain tops. Farmers’ main motivations for using those pastures have been and still are forage provision and health benefits for grazing animals, benefits for labour distribution between home farm and summer farm, and cultural ecosystem services such as the maintenance of a tradition and the associated lifestyle. Yet, remote pastures are being abandoned and are prone to reforestation, while more productive and accessible pastures are intensified. Those processes are related to changes in management practices, to scarcity of labour and – to a lesser extent – to climate change. We summarise the agronomic and ecological status of Swiss summer pastures, in particular with respect to livestock keeping, biodiversity and climate change, and speculate on future trends of summer farming.

Wald und Klimawandel in der inneralpinen Trockenregion Visp

2012 ◽  
Vol 163 (12) ◽  
pp. 481-492
Author(s):  
Andreas Rigling ◽  
Ché Elkin ◽  
Matthias Dobbertin ◽  
Britta Eilmann ◽  
Arnaud Giuggiola ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Forest Management ◽  
Forest Ecosystem ◽  
Bark Beetles ◽  
Forest Ecosystems ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Forest Monitoring ◽  
Management Interventions ◽  
Forest Ecosystem Services

Forest and climate change in the inner-Alpine dry region of Visp Over the past decades, observed increases in temperature have been particularly pronounced in mountain regions. If this trend should continue in the 21st Century, frequency and intensity of droughts will increase, and will pose major challenges for forest management. Under current conditions drought-related tree mortality is already an important factor of forest ecosystems in dry inner-Alpine valleys. Here we assess the sensitivity of forest ecosystems to climate change and evaluate alternative forest management strategies in the Visp region. We integrate data from forest monitoring plots, field experiments and dynamic forests models to evaluate how the forest ecosystem services timber production, protection against natural hazards, carbon storage and biodiver-sity will be impacted. Our results suggest that at dry low elevation sites the drought tolerance of native tree species will be exceeded so that in the longer term a transition to more drought-adapted species should be considered. At medium elevations, drought and insect disturbances as by bark beetles are projected to be important for forest development, while at high elevations forests are projected to expand and grow better. All of the ecosystem services that we considered are projected to be impacted by changing forest conditions, with the specific impacts often being elevation-dependent. In the medium term, forest management that aims to increase the resilience of forests to drought can help maintain forest ecosystem services temporarily. However, our results suggest that relatively rigid management interventions are required to achieve significant effects. By using a combination of environmental monitoring, field experiments and modeling, we are able to gain insight into how forest ecosystem, and the services they provide, will respond to future changes.

Climate change assessment impacts on the coastal area of Maliakos Gulf, Greece

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1235-1249 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Mentzafou ◽  
A. Conides ◽  
E. Dimitriou
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Coastal Area ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Wetland Loss ◽  
Mitigation Planning ◽  
Socio Economic Development ◽  
Climate Change Assessment ◽  
Adaptation And Mitigation

Abstract Coastal ecosystems are linked to socio-economic development, but simultaneously, are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change and sea level rise (SLR). Within this scope, detailed topographic data resources of Spercheios River and Maliakos Gulf coastal area in Greece, combined with information concerning the economic value of the most important sectors of the area (wetland services, land property, infrastructure, income) were employed, so as to examine the impacts of three SLR scenarios, compiled based on the most recent regional projections reviewed. Based on the results, in the case of 0.3 m, 0.6 m and 1.0 m SLR, the terrestrial zone to be lost was estimated to be 6.2 km2, 18.9 km2 and 31.1 km2, respectively. For each scenario examined, wetlands comprise 68%, 41% and 39% of the total area lost, respectively, reflecting their sensitivity to even small SLR. The total economic impact of SLR was estimated to be 75.4 × 106 €, 161.7 × 106 € and 510.7 × 106 € for each scenario, respectively (3.5%, 7.5% and 23.7% of the gross domestic product of the area), 19%, 17% and 8% of which can be attributed to wetland loss. The consequences of SLR to the ecosystem services provided are indisputable, while adaptation and mitigation planning is required.

The Historiography of Environmental History

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. McNeill
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Industrial Pollution ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses the emergence of environmental history, which developed in the context of the environmental concerns that began in the 1960s with worries about local industrial pollution, but which has since evolved into a full-scale global crisis of climate change. Environmental history is ‘the history of the relationship between human societies and the rest of nature’. It includes three chief areas of inquiry: the study of material environmental history, political and policy-related environmental history, and a form of environmental history which concerns what humans have thought, believed, written, and more rarely, painted, sculpted, sung, or danced that deals with the relationship between society and nature. Since 1980, environmental history has come to flourish in many corners of the world, and scholars everywhere have found models, approaches, and perspectives rather different from those developed for the US context.

scholarly journals Analysing the Impact of Climate Change on Hydrological Ecosystem Services in Laguna del Sauce (Uruguay) Using the SWAT Model and Remote Sensing Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 2014
Author(s):  
Celina Aznarez ◽  
Patricia Jimeno-Sáez ◽  
Adrián López-Ballesteros ◽  
Juan Pablo Pacheco ◽  
Javier Senent-Aparicio
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Swat Model ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Erosion Control ◽  
Sensing Data ◽  
Extreme Precipitation Events ◽  
The Impact

Assessing how climate change will affect hydrological ecosystem services (HES) provision is necessary for long-term planning and requires local comprehensive climate information. In this study, we used SWAT to evaluate the impacts on four HES, natural hazard protection, erosion control regulation and water supply and flow regulation for the Laguna del Sauce catchment in Uruguay. We used downscaled CMIP-5 global climate models for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 projections. We calibrated and validated our SWAT model for the periods 2005–2009 and 2010–2013 based on remote sensed ET data. Monthly NSE and R2 values for calibration and validation were 0.74, 0.64 and 0.79, 0.84, respectively. Our results suggest that climate change will likely negatively affect the water resources of the Laguna del Sauce catchment, especially in the RCP 8.5 scenario. In all RCP scenarios, the catchment is likely to experience a wetting trend, higher temperatures, seasonality shifts and an increase in extreme precipitation events, particularly in frequency and magnitude. This will likely affect water quality provision through runoff and sediment yield inputs, reducing the erosion control HES and likely aggravating eutrophication. Although the amount of water will increase, changes to the hydrological cycle might jeopardize the stability of freshwater supplies and HES on which many people in the south-eastern region of Uruguay depend. Despite streamflow monitoring capacities need to be enhanced to reduce the uncertainty of model results, our findings provide valuable insights for water resources planning in the study area. Hence, water management and monitoring capacities need to be enhanced to reduce the potential negative climate change impacts on HES. The methodological approach presented here, based on satellite ET data can be replicated and adapted to any other place in the world since we employed open-access software and remote sensing data for all the phases of hydrological modelling and HES provision assessment.

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