A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Curonian Spit coastal dunes landscape: climate driven change calls for the management optimization
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.
Curonian Spit coastal dunes landscape: climate driven change calls for the management optimization
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.
Curonian Spit coastal dunes landscape: climate driven change calls for the management optimization
Šimanauskienė, Rasa (author) / Linkevičienė, Rita (author) / Povilanskas, Ramūnas (author) / Satkūnas, Jonas (author) / Veteikis, Darijus (author) / Baubinienė, Aldona (author) / Taminskas, Julius (author)
2022-01-01
Land, Basel : MDPI, 2022, vol. 11, iss. 6, art. no. 877, p. [1-14] ; eISSN 2073-445X
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Curonian Spit coastal dunes landscape: climate driven change calls for the management optimization
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Key aesthetic appeal concepts of coastal dunes and forests on the example of the Curonian Spit
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Key aesthetic appeal concepts of coastal dunes and forests on the example of the Curonian Spit
| BASE | 2019
Key aesthetic appeal concepts of coastal dunes and forests on the example of the Curonian Spit
| BASE | 2019