Book Review: Climatic change and the Mediterranean; environmental and societal impacts of climate change and sea level rise in the mediterranean region. Vol 2. L. Jeftic, S. Keckes and J.C. Parnetta (eds), Arnold, London. No. of pages: 564. Price £89.50. ISBN 0-340-64565-2.
✍ Scribed by Kutiel, Haim
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 31 KB
- Volume
- 17
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0899-8418
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✦ Synopsis
This is the second in a series of four books aimed at discussing the environmental and societal impacts of climatic change and sea-level rise in the Mediterranean region. The ®rst volume (edited by Jeftic, Malliman and Sestini in 1992), contains several review articles on various aspects of possible climatic changes across the Mediterranean and a few case studies. Each case study is reported by one or two authors, with little possibility for comparison between the various studies. This second volume is a team effort containing a set of case studies, all with the same format enabling a comparison, compiled by over 50 authors.
The book starts with a review by the editors on the implications of future climatic changes for the Mediterranean coastal regions in which they describe the methodologies and the various approaches of the different generations of case studies. They also provide a comparative table including basic information about the different regions for which case studies were published in the ®rst and this present volume.
In the second introductory article, Palutikof and Wigely describe the procedure of developing the various scenarios. They mention the problems of preparing such scenarios and provide a comparative table of performances of various GCMs. However, their maps showing model averages for temperatures or precipitation are too simpli®ed and generalized, and are in contrast with the subsequent very detailed case studies.
Following the two introductory chapters are ®ve articles, all entitled: `Implication of Expected Climatic Changes for F F F' and the regions in question are: Rhodes, Kastela Bay (Croatia), the Syrian Coast, Malta and Cres-Losinj Islands (Croatia). All articles start with a background review of the region including its physiography, climate, infrastructure and socio-economic conditions and provide a table with the scenarios for future climatic changes for the years 2030, 2050 and 2100 suggested by IPCC and the University of East Anglia. Following, there is a chapter evaluating and assessing the various impacts of climatic change on, for example, climate, geomorphology, soils, water resources, terrestrial and marine ecosystems, population and economy. This chapter is followed by a synthesis of ®ndings and the most important part of this book, a chapter entitled Recommendations for Action.' However, although this chapter is the raison d'e Ãtre of the study, it is not given the same due attention by all teams. Although there are very detailed short-and long-term actions needed