Climate Change and Ecosystem Services in Bulgaria, or What We Lose When We Win
Climate change is an increasingly important pressure which impacts on ecosystems, disturbs their functioning, provokes biodiversity loss, and reduces their ability to provide important ecosystem service such as improving water quality and regulating water flows, carbon sequestration, etc. Climate change, together with other stressors, decrease the capacity of ecosystems to buffer the impacts from extreme events like fires, floods, and storms. It is of key importance to understand the manner in which ecosystem resilience supports climate change adaptation, and put a value to the benefits and costs of policy responses that use ecosystem services to reduce climate vulnerability. The study presents the situation in Bulgaria climate scenarios, the climate impact on the main ecosystem types, on different biodiversity levels. We combined Bulgarian vulnerability and sector analyses with EU level data to perform a national cost benefit analysis of the possible demand and supply of some ecosystem services relevant to climate change adaptation (mostly regulating services) we also present a case study for revealed price valuation of ecosystem services on a local project level based on EU guidelines. On both scales, we find that ecosystem based adaptation has improved the cost benefit ratio. The analysis is aligned with the principles of the DPSIR framework.
Key Challenges in Geography