Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Climate change impacts on environmental systems
4 Climate change impacts on
environmental systems
Changes in climatic conditions have direct
consequences on the physical and chemical properties
of environmental systems, as well as on the ecosystems
supported by them. This chapter presents selected
observed and projected changes in a variety of
climate‐sensitive characteristics of environmental
systems in Europe. Section 4.1 covers physical,
chemical and biological changes in oceans and marine
environments. Section 4.2 addresses physical changes
and (to a limited extent) economic risks in coastal
zones, focusing on sea level rise. Section 4.3 presents
physical and biological changes in freshwater systems.
Section 4.4 gives an overview of physical and biological
changes in terrestrial ecosystems, including soils and
forests. The concluding Section 4.5 summarises how
ecosystem services in Europe are affected by climate
change and other human pressures, such as habitat
change and pollution.
Box 4.1
Policy and institutional context
The EU's Seventh Environment Action Programme (EAP), which sets out the priorities for environmental policy until 2020,
recognises the urgent need to protect and enhance our environmental systems, that is, our natural capital. Priority objective
1 aims 'to protect, conserve and enhance the Union's natural capital, where natural resources are managed sustainably,
and biodiversity is protected, valued and restored in ways that enhance our society's resilience' (EU, 2013). The time line
requires the EU and its Member States to speed up the implementation of existing strategies to protect natural capital, to
fill gaps where legislation does not yet exist and to improve existing legislation. Key strategies include the EU Biodiversity
Strategy to 2020 (EC, 2011), which implements the global Aichi targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Europe
(EC, 2014), the Blueprint to Safeguard Europe's Water Resources (EC, 2012) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive
(EC, 2008b). These are supported by a number of earlier measures including legally binding commitments in the Habitats
Directive (EC, 1992), the Birds Directive (EC, 2009), the Water Framework Directive (EC, 2000) and the Air Quality Directive
(EC, 2008a), and a series of regulations addressing different environmental sectors such as agriculture (EC, 2010), forestry
(EU, 2010) and invasive species (EU, 2014), as well as the nature protection network Natura 2000 (EC, 2016b).
Achieving the policy targets of the Seventh EAP requires our knowledge about environmental systems, their functioning
and their interactions to be improved. This calls for a more integrated assessment of natural capital and for better
understanding of the interactions between the different components of the environment to support more targeted and
efficient policy measures. An important instrument for integrated assessments is implemented in Target 2, Action 5, of the
Common Implementation Framework (CIF) of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. The activity foresees 'Member States,
with the assistance of the Commission, will map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national
territory by 2014, assess the economic value of such services, and promote the integration of these values into accounting
and reporting systems at EU and national level by 2020' (EC, 2016a).
The EU has developed an analytical framework for the assessment of the condition of ecosystems and their services. For the
practical purposes of policy-relevant mapping and assessment at national and European levels, ecosystems are considered
here at the level of land/sea cover-related units. The framework distinguishes between urban areas, cropland, grassland,
woodland and forest, heathland and shrubs, wetland, sparsely vegetated land, rivers and lakes, transitional waters, coastal
areas and open oceans. These ecosystems represent key elements for human management, i.e. in agriculture, forestry,
fisheries and water management, to make the best use of their services (Maes et al., 2013). At the same time, this spatial
scale also reflects the existing policy sections established in European environmental legislation. Efforts for helping
ecosystems in Europe to adapt to climate change are also supported by the European Nature Conservation Agencies (ENCA)
network ( 45 ) (e.g. Bonn et al., 2014; Korn et al., 2014).
A recent review of the EU biodiversity policy in the context of climate change has identified a number of policy gaps:
(1) conservation targets need to better match conservation needs; (2) targets need to be set in a spatially coherent manner
across national scales; and (3) current monitoring appears insufficient to address these gaps (van Teeffelen et al., 2014).
( 45 ) http://www.encanetwork.eu.
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