Curonian Spit Coastal Dunes Landscape: Climate Driven Change Calls for the Management Optimization

Rasa Šimanauskienė, Rita Linkevičienė, Ramūnas Povilanskas, Jonas Satkūnas, Darijus Veteikis, Aldona Baubinienė and Julius Taminskas
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Rasa Šimanauskienė: Nature Research Centre, Akademijos Street 2, LT-08412 Vilnius, Lithuania
Rita Linkevičienė: Nature Research Centre, Akademijos Street 2, LT-08412 Vilnius, Lithuania
Ramūnas Povilanskas: Department of Sport, Recreation and Tourism, Faculty of Health Sciences, Klaipėda University, Herkaus Manto Street, LT-92294 Klaipėda, Lithuania
Jonas Satkūnas: Nature Research Centre, Akademijos Street 2, LT-08412 Vilnius, Lithuania
Darijus Veteikis: Faculty of Chemistry and Geosciences, Institute of Geosciences, Vilnius University, Čiurlionio Street 21/27, LT-03101 Vilnius, Lithuania
Aldona Baubinienė: Nature Research Centre, Akademijos Street 2, LT-08412 Vilnius, Lithuania
Julius Taminskas: Nature Research Centre, Akademijos Street 2, LT-08412 Vilnius, Lithuania

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-14

Abstract: On the Curonian Spit, the leading conservation issue is an opposition between the two contrasting nature-management principles—anthropocentricity and biocentricity. Land managers still waver between the two options, and the worst-case scenario materializes as a rapid proliferation of vegetation to the accumulative sandplain (palve). It results in the decline of sand drift to the mobile dunes. This article aims to examine how climate change affects the coastal dune landscape and to identify current dune protection and management priorities. The analysis of hydroclimatic changes; succession patterns in forest, herbaceous, and open-sand ecosystems; and phenological-based evaluation (NDVI from MODIS, 2000–2020), influencing possible management directions, were carried out in this study. The results show the significant hydro-climatic changes (air temperature, precipitation, and sea level) occurring over the last thirty years. They influence the prevailing overgrowth trends in recent decades, especially in herbaceous ecosystems. Therefore, if the EU’s priority habitat—open-sand ecosystems—is to be preserved, the main policy recommendation is to apply adequate management tools such as grazing, and to pay more attention to the aesthetic ecosystem services of the mobile dunes parallel to biodiversity conservation.

Keywords: environmental management; hydro-climatic changes; ecosystem change; NDVI; ecohydrology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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