This review of trends in inland saline lakes of Europe and Central Asia is based on the relevant section of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Regional Assessment Report for Europe and Central Asia (ECA). We assessed the present status of ECA saline lakes and the effects of direct drivers (climate change, land use, pollution, resource exploitation, invasive species) on ecosystem health and biodiversity. We also assessed past, current and future trends using habitat area and degradation, species richness, and endangered species as indicators. No uniform scenario is applicable to saline lakes in the region. The desiccation of the Aral Sea is caused mainly by land use change and water extraction. In the Caspian Sea, river modifications, water pollution, overfishing and poaching, and species invasions have led to a decrease in species richness and have threatened endemic species. Although trends for smaller saline lakes vary, our analysis demonstrates that land use change, overexploitation, and pollution are more important direct drivers of ecosystem health and biodiversity than climate change. The establishment of baseline biodiversity values for saline lakes is, however, complicated because biodiversity and the food-web structure are variable and depend strongly on salinity. Thus, there is a need to classify the ecological quality, biodiversity and ecosystem services of saline lakes along a salinity gradient. The improvement of water management and reuse of water, conservation measures, and introduction of climate-smart agriculture are basic conditions for the sustainable use of saline lakes in the region.
Climate change impacts in Russia's territory make species and ecosystems conservation in Protected Areas a more difficult challenge. Additional adaptation measures are required. Before they are developed, it is important to assess the vulnerability of a territory: what exactly, and to which extent, is exposed to adverse climate impacts? The accomplished research will help develop an action plan consistent with the current unstable climate and extreme weather events, as well as with projections by the leading research institutions of Roshydromet and the Russian Academy of Science. Today, methodologies have been developed and successfully tested for some natural zones. The conservation science is now facing a new challenge: how to combine collected information with climate projections and identify development perspectives for concrete territories.
This work is devoted to the analysis of the landscape structure of the coastal cliffs of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. The paper analyzes the features of vegetation growth and the landscape structure of the cliffs of the Tuaphat massif, proposes and substantiates the classification of landscapes of coastal cliffs, reveals the features of coastal landscapes. In the landscape structure of the coastal cliffs of the Tuaphat massif, natural boundaries can be distinguished by: the nature of the apparent occurrence of geological layers; substates by the steepness of the slope; striae, which are characterized by more abundant growth of vegetation along cracks in the geological layer; facies usually coincide geographically with nanoand microforms of the relief and are usually represented by one type of vegetation (for example, a pillow rock form). The distribution of vegetation by striae on fine crushed stone of siltstone or mudstone, the absence of halophytes, but the predominance of salt-tolerant plant species with a wide ecological amplitude (petrophytes, cosmopolitans and ruderal) are typical.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.