Key Topic 6 – Impact on the environment

Understanding the environmental impact of human activities is crucial for developing sustainable practices and mitigating the negative consequences of our actions

Climate change

Human activities that degrade ecosystems also drive global warming and negatively impact nature and people
Humans impact the physical environment in many ways, through pollution, burning fossil fuels, deforestation, overfishing, and more.
Changes like these have triggered (Impacts):
- climate change,
- soil erosion,
- poor air quality,
- undrinkable water,
- ecosystem disruption,
- melting glaciers and sea level rise, among other effects.

From 1980 to 2023, extreme weather has been responsible for:
- Around 790 billion euros in economic losses.
- Around 246.000 human fatalities.
Different regions in Europe will experience different changes in the patterns of extreme weather:
- In northern Europe, annual precipitation and heavy rainfall are likely to increase, with droughts becoming less frequent.
- Central Europe is likely to experience lower summer rainfall, but also harsher weather extremes (heavy precipitation, river floods, droughts and fire hazards), with mixed changes in annual precipitation and aridity.
- In southern Europe, annual precipitation and summer rainfall are projected to decrease, whereas aridity, droughts and fire hazards are all likely to increase.

Climate change | Wildfires

Climate change | Heat and Drought

Deforestation | Ecosystems disruption | Soil erosion

Soil erosion

In 2016, over 80 % of all areas in the EU-27 estimated to be affected by moderate to severe soil erosion were agricultural areas and natural grassland
The share of agricultural areas and natural grasslands estimated to be affected by moderate or severe soil erosion by water declined by 2.6 percentage points in the EU-27 between 2000 and 2016.

Contaminants in treated and untreated drinking water

Monitoring data indicate that perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) is widespread throughout European waters, often exceeding regulatory threshold levels set to avoid potential risk to human health and the environment.
From 2018 to 2022, 51-60% of rivers, 11-35% of lakes and 47-100% of transitional and coastal waters exceeded the annual average environmental quality standards (EQS) for PFOS.

Ecosystem health influences prospects for
climate resilient development

Human activities that protect, conserve and restore ecosystems contribute to climate resilient development
Diverse adaptation responses to current and nearterm climate impacts are already under way in many cities and settlements in different world regions
These responses range from hard engineering interventions to nature-based solutions, social policy and social safety nets to disaster management and capacity building