School of Geography and the Environment

MACIS: Minimisation of and Adaptation to Climate change Impacts on Biodiversity

MACIS will review the existing projections of climate change impacts on biodiversity and the state-of-the-art of methods to assess the probable future impacts of climate change on biodiversity. This includes the review of possible climate change adaptation and mitigation measures and their potential effect on future biodiversity. Also it will assess the available options to prevent and minimise negative impacts for the EU25 up to 2050. MACIS wants to further develop a series of biodiversity and habitat models that address biodiversity impacts, and are capable of calculating the consequences of the changes in the trends in drivers as specified by the narrative scenarios provided by the IPCC. MACIS will identify policy options in particular at the EU level to prevent and minimise negative impacts from climate change and from climate change adaptation and mitigation measures, and will use strong links among the partners to several EU projects.

Project objectives:

MACIS will assess the potential impacts of climate change and of proposed climate change adaptation and mitigation measures on biodiversity, and available options to prevent and minimise negative impacts. To do this MACIS will:

1. Compile the already observable evidence of impacts of climate change on biodiversity in the EU25.
2. Review and meta-analyse existing projections of the impact of climate change on biodiversity in the EU25 up to 2050.
3. Further develop a series of biodiversity and habitat models that address biodiversity impacts, and are capable of calculating the consequences of the changes in the trends in drivers as specified by the narrative scenarios provided by the IPCC
4. Review the state-of-the-art in the methods currently available to assess the probable future impacts of climate change on biodiversity.
5. Identify those climate change adaptation and mitigation measures which are most likely to have significant potential for adverse impact on biodiversity, and identify which habitat types and species groups are most at risk from these adaptation and mitigation measures.
6. Identify policy options particularly at the EU and the regional level to prevent and minimise negative impacts from climate change and from climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.
7. Improve methods to identify those habitat types most at risk from predicted climate change, as well as those habitat types which potentially buffer against the impacts of climate change.