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Forests in the Mediterranean region have been subject to environmental changes since time immemorial. The region's geography and location has made it a conducive environment between biomes, resulting in significant biodiversity. Since the beginning of human history, forests have adapted to pressures caused by human development, resulting in a complex socio-ecological balance. These pressures, however, have never been more extreme than they are today. Global change, understood as the wide range of global forces resulting from human activity, is affecting the entire Mediterranean basin (Doblas-Miranda et al., 2017). The threats caused by global change pose particular risks to the principal characteristics of Mediterranean forests and forested habitats described in previous chapters: 1. Mediterranean forests and shrublands are highly sensitive to global atmospheric changes due to their proximity to arid regions; 2. a long history of land-use change may result in more frequent and intense fires, water scarcity and land degradation and; 3. a singular biota is linked to a higher vulnerability to global change-induced extinction. Moreover, the wide range of socioeconomic conditions and government policies that characterize the Mediterranean basin affect the intensity and dynamics of these threats. This chapter outlines the different threats to Mediterranean forest landscapes, structured according to indirect and direct causes of degradation. The anthropogenic origin of current global changes directly affecting Mediterranean forests is considered the underlying cause of degradation. Although in many cases these human forces have a global impact (such as greenhouse gas emissions caused by climate change), this chapter will consider their effect on the Mediterranean region in particular. This chapter will also consider the consequences of direct and indirect threats and the combination of both.

Forests in the Mediterranean region have been subject to environmental changes since time immemorial. The region's geography and location has made it a conducive environment between biomes, resulting in significant biodiversity. Since the beginning of human history, forests have adapted to pressures caused by human development, resulting in a complex socio-ecological balance. These pressures, however,have never been more extreme than they are today. Global change, understood as the wide range of global forces resulting from human activity, is affecting the entire Mediterranean basin (Doblas-Miranda et al., 2017). The threats caused by global change pose particular risks to the principal characteristics of Mediterranean forests and forested habitats described in previous chapters: 1. Mediterranean forests and shrublands are highly sensitive to global atmospheric changes due to their proximity to arid regions; 2. a long history of land-use change may result in more frequent and intense fires, water scarcity and land degradation and; 3. a singular biota is linked to a higher vulnerability to global change-induced extinction. Moreover, the wide range of socioeconomic conditions and government policies that characterize the Mediterranean basin affect the intensity and dynamics of these threats.This chapter outlines the different threats to Mediterranean forest landscapes, structured according to indirect and direct causes of degradation. The anthropogenic origin of current global changes directly affecting Mediterranean forests is considered the underlying cause of degradation. Although in many cases these human forces have a global impact (such as greenhouse gas emissions caused by climate change), this chapter will consider their effect on the Mediterranean region in particular. This chapter will also consider the consequences of direct and indirect threats and the combination of both. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Across the 28 EU member states there were nearly half a million premature deaths in 2015 as a result of exposure to PM2.5, O3 and NO2. To set the target for air quality levels and avoid negative impacts for human and ecosystems health, the National Emission Ceilings Directive (NECD, 2016/2284/EU) sets objectives for emission reduction for SO2, NOx, NMVOCs, NH3 and PM2.5 for each Member State as percentages of reduction to be reached in 2020 and 2030 compared to the emission levels into 2005. One of the innovations of NECD is Article 9, that mentions the issue of "monitoring air pollution impacts" on ecosystems. We provide a clear picture of what is available in term of monitoring network for air pollution impacts on Italian ecosystems, summarizing what has been done to control air pollution and its effects on different ecosystems in Italy. We provide an overview of the impacts of air pollution on health of the Italian population and evaluate opportunities and implementation of Article 9 in the Italian context, as a case study beneficial for all Member States. The results showed that SO42− deposition strongly decreased in all monitoring sites in Italy over the period 1999–2017, while NO3− and NH4+ decreased more slightly. As a consequence, most of the acid-sensitive sites which underwent acidification in the 1980s partially recovered. The O3 concentration at forest sites showed a decreasing trend. Consequently, AOT40 (the metric identified to protect vegetation from ozone pollution) showed a decrease, even if values were still above the limit for forest protection (5000 ppb h−1), while PODy (flux-based metric under discussion as new European legislative standard for forest protection) showed an increase. National scale studies pointed out that PM10 and NO2 induced about 58,000 premature deaths (year 2005), due to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. The network identified for Italy contains a good number of monitoring sites (6 for terrestrial ecosystem monitoring, 4 for water bodies monitoring and 11 for ...