- The director general of the Spanish Office for Climate Change, Valvanera Ulargui, stresses that “it aims to provide a better knowledge of our marine environment, especially rich and diverse, but vulnerable to climate change”
- “We want this report to contribute to strengthening the resilience of the Spanish marine environment, to ensure that its environmental services continue to provide supplies, regulations, support and culture to our society,” adds Ulargui
- The report can now be consulted on the Ministry’s website
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment presented this morning the first report on the impact of climate change on the Spanish marine environment, introduced by the Director General of the Spanish Office for Climate Change, Valvanera Ulargui, who stressed that this report “aims to provide a better knowledge of our marine environment, which is particularly rich and diverse, but vulnerable to climate change.”
“We want this report to contribute to strengthening the resilience of the Spanish marine environment, to ensure that its environmental services continue to provide supplies, regulations, support and culture to our society”.
In his opinion, climate change poses “important challenges for the Spanish marine ecosystem”, which will be affected by a series of direct and indirect impacts, “but also poses numerous opportunities”, and this report compiles, analyzes and evaluates the existing information on the effects of climate change on the Spanish marine environment, contemplating all marine regions and covering from physical‐chemical to biological and ecological variables.
“EXCELLENCE AND RIGOR”
During the presentation, the author of the report, Diego K. Kersting, as well as some of the other researchers on climate change and managers of the marine environment who have collaborated in its development, took part.
Valvanera Ulargui, at this point, stressed that the “value of this report lies in the excellence and rigor with which it has been developed, and in the extensive review process to which it has been subjected, which has had the participation of the best Spanish experts in the field”.
NATIONAL PLAN FOR ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE
The report “Climate change in the Spanish marine environment: impacts, vulnerability and adaptation” is part of the National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change, whose ultimate objective is the integration of adaptation into the planning and management of all those sectors and areas that are sensitive to climate change and, therefore, vulnerable to climate change.
This work involves an integrative analysis of the existing knowledge in relation to the influence of climate change on the Spanish marine environment at both a physical-chemical and biological level, focusing on impacts already observed such as mass mortalities, changes in abundance and distribution of species, phenological changes, etc.
The report also analyses which species and habitats are most vulnerable taking into account long-term projections and proposes various categories of adaptation measures to increase the resilience of our marine environment.
AVAILABLE ON THE MINISTRY’S WEBSITE
The report “Climate change in the Spanish marine environment: impacts, vulnerability and adaptation” can be downloaded in pdf format.
