Wetlands in Crisis: The Silent Desertification Threat on the Greek Wetlands

Anastasios Zotos (), Ioannis P. Kokkoris, Ioannis Charalampopoulos (), Eleni S. Bekri and Panayotis Dimopoulos
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Anastasios Zotos: Department of Sustainable Agriculture, University of Patras, 30131 Agrinio, Greece
Ioannis P. Kokkoris: Department of Sustainable Agriculture, University of Patras, 30131 Agrinio, Greece
Ioannis Charalampopoulos: Laboratory of General and Agricultural Meteorology, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Eleni S. Bekri: Environmental Engineering Laboratory, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, Greece
Panayotis Dimopoulos: Laboratory of Botany, Department of Biology, University of Patras, 26504 Rio, Greece

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: This study deals with the information gap on desertification risk for wetland habitat types in Natura 2000 network sites of Greece. Using the Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESA) index as a proxy, all Natura 2000 wetland habitat types have been assessed and assigned to desertification risk categories. The assessment was conducted at the national, regional, and local scales in order to provide different outcomes for targeted support on decision and policy making regarding restoration and conservation measures. The main results document that circa 20% of wetland habitat types area are considered under desertification risk, while circa 10% are considered as potentially affected by desertification. It was also shown that there should be prioritization of the habitat types that need attention due to their inclusion in the different desertification risk categories. The study also highlights the administrative regions (NUTS2) and Natura 2000 sites and the need to structure, draft, and implement conservation projects to mitigate wetlands’ risk as well as the use of wetlands as primary nature-based solutions (NbS) in the battle with desertification and climate change. Management implications are also provided from the perspective of habitat restoration as well as for their exploitation as valuable NbS for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services maintenance.

Keywords: Natura 2000; ESA index; conservation priority; nature-based solutions; climate change; bioclimate; ecosystem services; support for decision making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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