Potential Hazards and Threats (Task 2.4)

This task aims to identify potential hazards and threats on the ecosystem arising from Global Change due to either natural variability or anthropogenic activity and as such, its output has been linked to WP5.

Background and Rationale

Many sources, ranging from paleoceanographic records to current ecosystem monitoring, from national and regional myths to patterns of population movement in historical times, bear witness to the sensitivity of this region to natural changes. In Neolithic times the Black Sea was a highly oxygenated fresh-water lake with flourishing coastal establishments, while the Eastern Mediterranean was anoxic below a certain critical depth. About 7100 years ago, the system changed completely: the Black Sea , became anoxic, the Eastern Mediterranean became oligotrophic and the Aegean Sea was ventilated on an annual basis. Such enormous changes caused dramatic stresses (catastrophe might be a more appropriate word) to the local ecosystems and the populations dwelling on the coastal margins.

At the end of the Younger Dryas period the glaciers melted, and there were also changes in the local evaporation-precipitation balance in Eastern and Central Europe . Results from recent paleoceanographic and coupled numerical models show that global changes of a similar magnitude may take place within a timescale of decades, due to global natural variability. Current anthropogenic activities pose another potential threat to the ecosystem at least as great as the former.

Task leader

Ferdinando Boero

Participants