Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Climate change impacts on environmental systems
Biodiversity is included in the IPCC review as a service
(for completeness), although it is debated whether
biodiversity should be considered as a service or as
part of the natural capital from which services flow.
It is agreed, however, that biodiversity losses within
an ecosystem will have deleterious effects on service
provision.
According to Table 4.2, the provision of ecosystem
services in southern Europe is projected to decline
across all service categories in response to climate
change. Other European macro-regions are projected
to have both losses and gains in the provision of
ecosystem services. The northern macro-region will
have increases in provisioning services arising from
climate change. Except for the southern macro-region,
the effects of climate change on regulating services are
balanced with respect to gains and losses. There are
fewer studies for cultural services, and assessments
of regional changes in cultural services have low
confidence.
An independent assessment of the future impacts
of climate change on eight ecosystem services was
performed using an integrated modelling platform
developed in the CLIMSAVE ( 70 ) project for the same
macro-regions as in the IPCC review (Dunford et al.,
2015). Table 4.3 presents a semi-qualitative summary
of the results for different ecosystem services, regions,
climate scenarios and socio-economic scenarios.
Table 4.3
Projected impacts of climate change on ecosystem services in Europe
Food Water Timber Atmospheric regulation
Extreme Moderate Extreme Moderate Extreme Moderate Extreme Moderate
W S W S W S W S W S W S W S W S
Europe
Continental
Alpine
Atlantic
Northern
Southern
Landscape experience Land use diversity Biodiversity (forest) Biodiversity (arable)
Extreme Moderate Extreme Moderate Extreme Moderate Extreme Moderate
W S W S W S W S W S W S W S W S
Europe
Continental
Alpine
Atlantic
Northern
Southern
Legend:
Decrease > – 20 % Extreme climate
Decrease > – 5 % Moderate climate
Increase > + 5 % W 'We are the world' socio-economics
Increase > + 20 % S 'Stay or go' socio-economics
Note:
This table shows projected impacts of climate change on ecosystem services in Europe by macro-region for different scenarios based on
the CLIMSAVE integrated assessment platform.
Source: Adapted from Dunford et al., 2015.
( 70 ) CLIMSAVE: 'Climate Change Integrated Assessment Methodology for Cross-Sectoral Adaptation and Vulnerability in Europe'.
Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 | An indicator-based report
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