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.
