The impact of climate change on the local landscape is already being felt, with further desertification to be a direct consequence of the predicted trends in the central Mediterranean.
Dr Sandro Lanfranco, the University’s Head of the Department of Biology, is anticipating that with the current change in climate, in the near future it will become unviable to have a freshwater swimming pool or be able to do gardening the way it is currently done.
Another area that could be compromised by this is winemaking, he told the Times in a recent interview about his reactions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Chane report issued recently.
This is because the derivation of water from desalination plants is not sustainable, Dr Lanfranco says, as it involves high energy levels, and the over-extraction of groundwater has already dried up most springs.
Dr Lanfranco has been researching how plants can act as climate change indicators. He found that Malta is semi-arid, with increases in population over the past century increasing pressure on its water resources.
More predicted effects of this are shorter plant-growing seasons, an accelerated soil erosion process, and loss of wildlife as species living in permanent water will be scarcer.
“The environmental price will be higher than that paid by consumers”, he commented.
The interview may be read in full .
