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AUTHOR(S): 

Monica Matei, Lucian Laslo, Nicu Ciobotaru, Cristina Musat, Boboc Madalina, Marius Raischi, Deak Gyorgy

 

TITLE

Assessment of Pressures Caused by Climate Changes on Wetlands in Romania Based on MAES Framework

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KEYWORDS

wetlands, climate change, pressures, MAES framework, EU Biodiversity Strategy, DPSIR framework

ABSTRACT

Ecosystems provide benefits to humanity, but lately they are affected by pressures such as habitat degradation, over-exploitation, invasive alien species, pollution and climate change. To meet the global target of the Convention of Biodiversity, European Union adopted the Biodiversity Strategy to 2020, settling 6 specific targets, with 20 concrete actions. Until 2020 EU Member States must prevent by proper measures the loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services. The action 5 of Target 2 it is implemented by the Working group MAES, which strongly cooperates with European Environment Agency and Joint Research Center in order to achieve de propose targets at European level. Firstly, this implies the necessity to implement the methodology proposed by MAES for ecosystem assessment at national and local level. In the present study is performed an assessment of pressures caused by climate changes on wetlands in Romania, taking into account the methodology proposed by MAES. Based on the set of indicators recommended by MAES framework and following the DPSIR (Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact and Response) framework, was highlighted the evolution of the main climatic parameters (temperature and precipitation), in two different periods: current climate (period 1950-2000) and future climate (2041-2060). For this, have been used data sets from the WorldClim5 database, selecting the output of global climate model HadGEM2-ES developed by the Met Office Hadley Centre, England, at the spatial resolution of 20 m, for RCP4.5 scenario. The future climate projections show a variation of air temperature parameter between 13.01 to 15 °C, affecting an area of 3256.1 km2 of wetlands in Romania (85.98%). Regarding the differences in rainfall distribution between present and future climate, were observed differences between -50 and -25 mm affecting the largest area of wetlands at national level, of 2287.75 km2 (60.40%).

Cite this paper

Monica Matei, Lucian Laslo, Nicu Ciobotaru, Cristina Musat, Boboc Madalina, Marius Raischi, Deak Gyorgy. (2016) Assessment of Pressures Caused by Climate Changes on Wetlands in Romania Based on MAES Framework. International Journal of Environmental Science, 1, 265-271