Adaptive capacity of climate sensitive habitats to climate change in Hungary

Lepesi, Nikolett and Bede-Fazekas, Ákos and Czúcz, Bálint and Somodi, Imelda (2017) Adaptive capacity of climate sensitive habitats to climate change in Hungary. IDŐJÁRÁS / QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE HUNGARIAN METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE, 121 (4). pp. 415-436. ISSN 0324-6329

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Abstract

Several natural habitats are expected to be sensitive to climate, and their vulnerability to future climate change can be further increased by their insufficient capacity to adapt to the changes. Therefore, it is increasingly pressing to set up methodologies for assessing sensitivity and adaptive capacity of natural ecosystems for enhancing detailed climate change impact, adaptation, and vulnerability assessments. In this paper, we first provide a methodology to quantify the sensitivity of a natural habitat based on habitat distribution models. Next, we selected the 12 most climate sensitive habitats of Hungary as a case study. We also developed a composite adaptive capacity index, which was applied to the selected habitats and used as an input in the climate change impact, adaptation, and vulnerability assessment described. Our adaptive capacity index consists of three main components describing the naturalness, diversity, and connectivity of the studied natural habitats. According to our results, adaptive capacity of the climate sensitive habitats of Hungary is generally lower than it needs to be to cope with the predicted climate change of the 21st century.

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