Nature protection and biodiversity - Drivers and pressures (Greece)

The main drivers of biodiversity decline in Greece are related to past and current policies on land use, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, transport and tourism, and to the prevailing consumption and production patterns of contemporary Greek society. The most important pressures on threatened avifauna in Greece are given in Table 10.

Land take

Urban sprawl and land taken up by development activities in Greece (1990-2000) has increased by 15 %. 63% of the land uptake has affected natural (23 %) and semi-natural (37 %) areas with consequent impacts on species and ecosystems (Figure 7).

Climate change

Species that are quite abundant in the Greek seas (e.g. anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) and sardine (Sardinella aurita and Sardina pilchardus)), are affected by regional temperature variations, riverine inputs and wind-induced mixing. Impacts of climate change on forest biodiversity are linked to temperature increase and precipitation decrease and to forest fires (MINENV, 2010).

Worst Invasive Alien Species

18 terrestrial species in Greece are among the 100 Worst Invasive Alien Species (WIAS), according to the DAISIE database (2008) (Table 11). The most important pressure of terrestrial WIAS in Greece is on natural ecosystems, through competition or predation on existing species and contamination through the spread of diseases.

Shipping is the second-most important vector of the primary and secondary spread of alien species (23 %) in Greek marine waters, preceded by entry through the Suez Canal (44 %). Aquaculture is the most important mode of introduction of freshwater alien species in Greece (Zenetos et al., 2009). In 2009, Hellenic waters hosted 60 species of the aquatic WIAS threatening biodiversity in the Mediterranean, a 20 % increase since 2000 (Table 12).

Nutrient loads

In the Aegean Sea, coastal waters with high concentrations of inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus are linked to anthropogenic activities, sewage outfalls, and riverine outflows (Figure 8). A comparison of nutrient loads between 1995 and 2007 is given in Table 13 and Figures 9-12.

Technology and eutrophication

Α general expansion of the Hellenic fisheries took place during the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, due to the modernisation of the Hellenic fishing fleet and the effect of man-made eutrophication on the productivity of coastal waters. The positive effects appear to have subsided over the last 24 years.