Global Environmental Change Challenges to Science and Society in Southeastern Europe

About this book

This book comprises selected papers presented during the International Conference "Global Environmental Change: Challenges for Science and Society in South-Eastern Europe" held 19-21 May 2008 in Sofia, Bulgaria.

The conference goal was to assess recent knowledge on global environmental change and related impacts in countries of the Balkan and neighboring southeastern European region. The focus on this region is due to the present sensitivity to global change and the anticipated increased sensitivity in the future.

The intention of this volume is to provide an updated summary of the Conference presentations which are aimed at a wide audience of readers including, university teachers, researchers, decision-makers of different administrative units, managers of relevant companies.

"Global Environmental Change: Challenges for Science and Society in South-Eastern Europe" begins with and Introduction and four keynote chapters giving a more general perspective of the conference topics. The chapters encompass results from studies on climate change, land use change, changes in the carbon and water cycles, air quality, etc. Beyond the work of scientists and actions of governments, civil society has a major stake in dealing with environmental changes including actions to address, resulting impacts and to exploit new opportunities.

Contents

Preface.- Introduction.- PART I: Keynotes.- 1 Weather and Climate: Scientific Problems - 2 Climate Change and the Balkans: Real Concern or "Useless Arithmetic".- 3 Global change and related impacts.- 4 Society, Science and Action.- PART II: Global change and climate change in Southeastern Europe.- 5 Climate modeling beyond the complexity: Challenges in model-building.- 6 Changes in different type of clouds in south-eastern part of Europe.- 7 Climate change research in Republic of Macedonia in the XXI century .- 8 The impact of climate change on the precipitation regime in Bosnia and Herzegovina .- 9 Climatological analysis of the synoptic situations causing torrential precipitation events in Bulgaria during the period 1961--2007.- PART III: Environmental Impacts.- 10 A summary on sector and region specific economic impact and vulnerability assessments by case studies in Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.- 11 CECILIA -- EC FP6 Project on the Assessment of Climate Change Impacts in Central and Eastern Europe.- 12 Vulnerabilities and adaptation options of European agriculture - recent results from the ADAGIO project .- 13 Impact of expected changes of climate to the water resources and power sector in Albania.- 14 Forests in Serbia as the factor of soil and water protection against degradation in the condition of global climate changes.- PART IV: Impacts on society and economy.- 15 Climate change impacts on tourism.- 16 Heavy rain and social impact in Albania.- 17 Effects of air pollution on red blood cells in children.- 18 Change in surface water resources as a challenge to Moldova's society.- 19 Long-term trends of lead-210 activity concentration in the ground-level air in Finland and Bulgaria.- PART V: From global to local and vice versa.- 20 Drought management center for Southeastern Europe.- 21 The role of local communities in revising the National Action Programme for mitigating drought, preventing and combating desertification: lessons from Romania.- 22 Strengthening capacities in Western Balkan countries to address environmental problems through remediation of high priority hot spots.- 23 Pilot training programme for integration of global environmental concerns into the regional and spatial planning process in Bulgaria.- Index

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