Climate change is already having an impact on habitats and species in Europe, for example a decrease in plant species has been recorded in some areas. According to recent research, spatial planning is a key concept in making European ecosystems more resilient to climate change, as it takes into account all factors that affect a habitat, including economic development, transport, environmental protection, health and culture.
Many scientific reports suggest that unavoidable changes in climate will happen over the next 40-50 years as a result of past emissions. Areas seen as most vulnerable to climate change include the Mediterranean and southern Europe, mountain and sub-arctic areas, and densely occupied floodplains and coastal zones. Annual temperatures could increase by 2.0-6.3 degrees centigrade by 2100. Rainfall could also increase by 1-2 per cent per decade for northern Europe and decrease by 1 per cent in southern Europe.Events affecting habitats and biodiversity will include heat waves, droughts, storms and rising sea levels. The impact may cause species to move towards the north and an increase in extinction rates. Mitigation remains the key focus of climate change policy, with less attention given to understanding how to adapt to inevitable rising temperatures. The pressures of climate change present a major challenge, not just for biodiversity policy, but also for land use policy, which affects biodiversity.
The EU’s 2006 Biodiversity Communication and its Action Plan set an agenda for action to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010, as agreed in the Gothenburg summit, 2001. However, biodiversity continues to decline under pressure from land use change and development. For example, as water supplies for urban populations shrink, building new infrastructures may place stress on existing ground and surface water systems and the flora and fauna that rely on it.
The research reviewed land use plans and policy in three countries: France, the Netherlands and the UK. It looked at their use of natural resources, management of water and coastal zones, plans for designated sites and case studies on urban, rural, inland and coastal sites. The policies were examined for their ability to account for biodiversity adaptation to climate change and to identify ways of integrating ‘spatial planning’ and biodiversity policy. Spatial planning has a broader sense than ‘land use’, in that it accounts for all activities and interests that concern a particular area.
The authors found that although dynamic biodiversity is becoming more fully realised in spatial planning policy, existing EU directives such as the Birds Directive (CEC 1979), the Habitats Directive (CEC 1992), and the Natura 2000 network set up to create a network of protected sites, by themselves cannot fully protect landscape features necessary to support biodiversity under a period of prolonged climate change.
They recommend ‘climate-proofing’ plans through the use of Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment. Land use plans should be integrated with the adoption of common objectives, time horizons and boundaries. The study also highlighted the need for more flexible responses to climate change, with stakeholders safeguarding habitats in between protected areas. This would result in more robust conservation planning across whole landscapes, reducing fragmentation of sites and creating corridors and networks for wildlife. International cooperation was also found to be critical, as wildlife moves across national boundaries. Integration with agriculture, transport and water sectors would also lead to a better capacity to adapt to climate change.
Barriers to putting a fully effective policy in place include: planning time-scales that are too short, a lack of consensus on intervention measures, uncertainty on the actual impact of climate change impacts, conflicts of interest and public opinion which is sensitive to change, especially in treasured landscapes. |
