Ecological Challenges of Climate Change in Europe's Continental, Drought-Threatened Southeast

摘要

The present climate change adaptation and mitigation strategy in Europe does not deal with ecological problems of continental Southeast European environments and with the role of terrestrial vegetation cover according to their importance, although the predicted increase of drought frequency will have a profound effect on quality of human life and on the functioning ("services") of ecosystems. In this region the southern border of the closed forest belt forms an ecotone toward the forest steppe. Forests have an effect on the majority of factors causing climatic forcing, such as surface albedo, carbon emission and sequestration, evapotranspiration etc. A recurrent drawback of present forecasting models is the inaccurate parameterisation and the lack of consideration of biotic response mechanisms and of planned forest management.