Vulnerability and adaptation to global climate change: The Estonian national report

Because of its geography, wide coastal areas, water resources, forests, and wetlands, the environment of Estonia is sensitive to climate change and sea level rise. Therefore, the vulnerability and adaptation assessment focused on these sectors GCM-based and incremental climate change scenarios are used for V and A assessment in Estonia. The results of five GCMs provided by NCAR are available, and four of them (GISS, CCCM, GFDL30, GFDL transient) are chosen for the assessment in Estonia. The CERES-Barley model is used to assess crop productivity in four long-term (1966--1987) barley field trials situated on different types of soils in different parts of Estonia. The SPUR-2 model which was expected to be used to assess herbage sensitivity to climate change doesn`t fit Estonia. To estimate the responses of forests to proposed climate change scenarios, five study sites with relatively species rich forest stands and with different types of climate (continental and moderately maritime) are selected and the simple version of the Forest Gap Model is used. The Holdridge Life Zones Classification Models are also used to determine the potential evapotranspiration ratio for different tree species and the multiplier for temperature as a function of the forest growth. The WatBal model is used in water resources vulnerability assessment for three rivers with different hydrological regimes and landscape conditions