Climate change impacts on waterbird species: to assess risk and propose conservation actions

The ongoing climate change is already affecting significantly the avifauna linked to wetland areas. Southern Europe will suffer more and more from water shortage due climate warming, which will put at severe risk wetlands and many bird species strictly linked to them.
It is therefore strategic to predict in advance the effects of climate change on waterbirds dwelling or stopping over in wetland areas in order to propose pro-active conservation actions for mitigation and/or compensation of negative impacts.
Study areas correspond to wetlands in Sardinia and Sicily regions. The time span of our study is focussed on the yearly period of highest risk for waterbirds, i.e. from July to September.
This action will produce a predictive tool to assess the level of risk of individual wetlands (including Natura 2000 sites), and it will highlight priority areas of intervention and management guidelines.