Climatechange 2022 extremeheat

UK records highest ever temperature

EUWest-2021 air pollution View from Grange Road over parts of SE London - geograph.org.uk - 1095564 2

Nitrogen Dioxide Levels in the UK, Air Pollution

EUWest-2019 Braunkohlekraftwerk

Coal Usage in Decline

1 in 4 of Britain's Mammals Threatened with Extinction

EUWest-2018 Common blue butterfly (Polyommatus icarus) male 3

Butterflies Decline by 84%, Netherlands

EUWest-2016 La seine sort de son lit - Pont Alexandre III

2016 European Floods

EUWest-2015 swiss alps Dix

Paris Climate Agreement

EUWest-2011-TweedRiver

Tweed River Salmon Restoration Success

EUWest-2007 NORTH POLE Ice (19626661335)

BBC Trust Weighs the Balance of Evidence on Climate Change

EUWest-2003-heatwave

European Heat Wave

EUWest-1989-EuropeanGreenBelt

Initiative for the Establishment of the European Greenbelt Begins

EUWest-1997

"Salmon 2000"

EUWest-1987-MeuseRiver

Reintroduction of Salmon to the Meuse River

EUWest-1986 Schweizerhalle Aufraeumarbeiten 1

Rhine River Chemical Spill

EUWest-1978-AmocoCadiz

Amoco Cadiz Oil Spill

EUWest-1968 Beinn Eighe from Abhainn Bruachaig (geograph 5683566)

First UN Biosphere Conference

EUWest-1963 Ngorongoro-Crater-Morning-Scene

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Established

EUWest-1960 3007898595 92a9e4354d o

Cleaning of the Rhine River

EUWest-1952 Nelson s Column during the Great Smog of 1952

British Clean Air Act

EUWest-1953 Watersnoodramp 1953

The North Sea Flood of 1953

EUWest-1950-Salmon

Rhine River Salmon Extinct

EUWest-1911-Smog

"Smog" Coined 

EUWest-1880 Britishentomologyvolume5Plate12 2

Large Copper Butterfly Extinct in England

EUWest-1875 Haeckel Narcomedusae

Term "Biosphere" Coined

EUWest-1872-Nauseating

"Nauseating" Water Pollution in Groningen

EUWest-1870 a6346-65e5a7

"Augustine Mouchot Predicts a Need for Solar Energy"

EUWest-1866 Haeckel Muscinae

Term "Ecology" Coined

EUWest-1859 John Gould Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle Pyrocephalus nanus

Evolutionary Science

EUWest-1855-GreatStink

"Observations on the Filth of the Thames" Reflects State of European Rivers

EUWest-1831 Fedotov cholera

Contaminated Water & Cholera Outbreaks

EUWest-1852 Johann Gottfried Steffan Motiv aus der Ramsau bei Berchtesgaden 1874.

Protection of Alpine Forests

EUWest-1850 Nerz-drawing

European Mink Populations Decline

The Great Famine

EUWest-1842 Pincerno - Suhr - Der Große Brand 1842

Great Fire Leads to New Sewer Lines in Hamburg

EUWest-1840 Keulemans-GreatAuk

Extinction of the Great Auk

EUWest-1831 Actual supposed routes of Cholera from Hindoostan to Europe Wellcome L0074539

Cholera Pandemic Accelerated By Globalization

EUWest-1814 Griffiths Guide to the iron trade of Great Britain an elaborate review of the iron (and) coal trades for last year, addresses and names of all ironmasters, with a list of blast furnaces, iron (14761790294)

William Wordsworth on the Industrial Revolution

EUWest-1789-BearBaiting

Animal Baiting Banned

EUWest-1779 Title page and portrait System... Polizey J. P. Frank Wellcome L0009926

Connection Drawn Between Pollution & Public Health 

EUWest-1713 Adrian Ludwig Richter 013

Nachhaltigkeit: Proposal for Sustainable Forestry 

EUWest-1560 Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Hunters in the Snow (Winter) - Google Art Project

The Little Ice Age

EUWest-1664-Forestry

First Published Text on Forestry Encourages Replanting

EUWest-1661 London Bridge (1616) by Claes Van Visscher

Air Pollution in London

Ireland Deforested for Plantation

EUWest-1580 Jacob van Ruisdael - Landscape with a Windmill - 1967.19 - Cleveland Museum of Art

Wetlands Drained With Dutch Technology

EUWest-1526 1-the-beaver-castor-fiber-2-the-musquash-fiber-zibethicus-e056bd

Last Beaver in Britain Shot

EUWest-1500-1800 Wenceslas Hollar - The woodman 2

Pre-industrial Deforestation

EUWest-1500 Ridinger

"Forstordnungen (forest orders) Published"

EUWest-1499-TrawlingFlanders

Trawling Banned in Flanders 

EUWest-1492-Columbus

The Columbian Exchange

EUWest-1400 Acipenser sturio 1879

European Sturgeon Fished into Oblivion

EUWest-1376 FMIB 36649 Beam Trawl

First Historical Reference to Trawling is a Petition Against its Environmental Harm

EUWest-1366-ButcherWaste

Paris Butcher Waste Legislation

EUWest-1348 BlackDeath

Rich and Poor Alike Fall to the Black Death in England

EUWest-1347-BlackDeath

The Black Death

EUWest-1315 Great famine

Floods and Great Famine

EUWest-1307-KingEd

Edward I Prohibits Coal Burning

EUWest-1280 Hieronymus Bosch - Triptych of the Adoration of the Magi - WGA2606 2

Dutch Landscapes Sinking

EUWest-1291 Georgius Agricola Erzsucher

Late Medieval Forest Protection

EUWest-1200 Barges on the Thames 11509 2

Coal Mining in Britain

EUWest-1000-MedievalForestClearingsBerry mars

Medieval Forest Clearings

EUWest-1080-NewForest

New Forest: Conservation Limits Access to Once-Public Lands

EUWest-1079 King John from De Rege Johanne

William the Conqueror Designates Massive Hunting Preserve Called New Forest

EUWest-700 bear hunting K019508

Hunting Extirpates Large Mammals from UK

EUWest-600 MedHartHunt

Royal Forests Restrict Land Use

EUWest-600 The Druid Grove

Brehon Law Identifies Sacred Trees

EUWest-100-RomanMetal

Pollution From Metallurgy in the Roman Era

EUWest-536 Cole Thomas The Course of Empire Destruction 1836

Dust Veil

EUWest-0BCE350 Lead water pipe, Roman

Pliny the Elder on Mining for Metals

EUWest-50 Munich Cup Diatretum 22102016 1

Roman Deforestation of Gaul and Britain 

EUWest-0BCE1600 Nebra Scheibe 2

Bronze Age Mining and Deforestation

EUWest-0BCE-4000 BLEgerton3028Fol30rStonehengeCropped

Emergence of Monuments Alongside Neolithic Alterations to Ecosystems

EUWest-BCE 4000 Sweet Track replica

Early Woodland Management

EUWest-0BCE6000- Illustration Lens culinaris0

Arrival of the First Farmers

EUWest-0BCE9000-IrishElk

Irish Elk

Europe, Western Europe

Alps

The highest and most extensive mountain range in Europe, the Alps is home to over 30,000 animal species and 13,000 plant species, the richest in Western Europe. The region provides 40% of Europe’s freshwater. Climate change threatens to alter the natural water cycle that could have negative repercussions across Europe. Spreading settlements, unsustainable farming, road networks, and river dams place Alpine biodiversity at risk.

Rhine River

The Rhine river is Western Europe’s largest river basin. The river provides water for about 30 million people, and serves as a habitat for a large diversity of fauna and flora. It is also used for industrial and agricultural purposes, disposal of municipal wastewater, and hydropower.  Unsustainable hydropower infrastures, micro pollutants, and lower water levels continue to threaten biodiversity and water quality.

Atlantic Mixed Forests 

Only fragments of natural vegetation remain in this ecoregion, which extends along the Atlantic edge of western Europe. Originally characterized by oak and beech forests, coastal dunes, heaths and bogs, most of the area was converted long ago into agriculture or pasture lands, eliminating many native species of large mammals including elk, brown bears, aurochs, and bison.  

Thames River Basin

Though the Thames covers less than 10% of England and Wales, the river basin is home to nearly a quarter of the region’s population (around 14 million people). Basin ecosystems including chalk streams, marshlands, and the Greater Thames estuary at the North Sea are threatened by agricultural pollution and urban run-off. Climate change is likely to exacerbate flood risks while reducing water availability.

Deforestation

Demand for agricultural land and use of wood over the past 6,000 years has led to the loss of more than half of Europe’s forests; in regions of Western Europe such as the UK and the Republic of Ireland, forest coverage has dropped below 10%. Over half of Europe’s endemic trees are threatened with extinction.

Intensive Agriculture

Intensified farming with the use of pesticides has been linked to the decline of European farmland birds and insects. French farmland bird counts were reduced by a third in the last 17 years, flying insect numbers in Germany by three-quarters in 30 years, and butterfly populations in Netherlands by 84% over 130 years. 45% of agricultural habitats in the EU nature directives have been  listed as deteriorating.

Biodiversity loss

According to IUCN, 36 species have become extinct in Europe as of 2015.  In Germany, more than 1 million established trees died in 2018, increasing in 2020 as a result of drought, winter storms and bark beetle plagues. In the UK, one in five British mammal species are at risk of extinction. Habitat loss and fragmentation, unsustainable agriculture and climate change are leading drivers of biodiversity loss.

Climate Change 

Europe has been warming faster than the global average and climate model projections, with higher temperatures and droughts becoming more common in Western Europe. In 2019, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and the UK recorded all-time national temperature highs. Around one third of the EU’s population lives within 50km (31mi) of the coast, exposed to risks of sea level rise including flooding and coastal erosion. 

Western Europe