News

Foundation for the national restoration plan of grasslands 

This project supports the identification of spatial locations suitable for grassland conservation and restoration in Hungary. In phase I, potential distribution of grassland habitat types was compared with the distribution of existing stands. In phase II, new potential distribution models of grassland habitats will be built and will be subjected to new environmental conditions corresponding to climate change projections of the end of the century. The new models will rely both on data originating from Hungary and data from regions that are climatically analogous with the expected climate of future Hungary. Long-term stable stands will be indentified as well as current stands, where the future abiotic conditions will be different from the requirement of the habitat present and thus might trigger habitat change. 

Preparing for better climate change impact assessment for Hungary 

The current project plans to test the applicability of potential natural vegetation (PNV) models already developed for Hungary in the southern border countries. In the frame of the project, we will identify and handle challenges of model transfer to a new area as well as prepare model building in the future including data collection. The PNV map of the new regions will support sustainable nature conservation planning, ecological restoration, sustainable forestry and agriculture decisions. It will also enhance the holistic handling of the environmental challenges in the Pannonian region. Furthermore, the project will provide the necessary basis for the modelling of expected climate change impact on vegetation in a follow-up project in the coming years.

Potential natural vegetation of the riverside of Danube and its former floodplains

Our research group contributes to a spatial database built within the framework of WWF Hungary's Danube program. It aims to ensure that the condition of Danube and the habitats in its former floodplains do not deteriorate. The developed database will contain biotic and abiotic elements, based on which it can be seen and decided which river sections are most valuable and are in need of development. In the case of investments endangering the condition of habitats (e.g. shipping development) these maps will be used to establish the nature conservation position. The database will be available in OpenBioMaps, a collection of spatial biotic databases, for educational and project development purposes.

Application of MPNV for sustainable land use in the floodplain of Tisza River

In collaboration with experts of WWF and Hortobágy National Park Directorate, we make MPNV-based land use recommendations for two newly planned floodplains. The studied floodplains of Tisza River, an influent of Danube, are near the settlements Tiszakécske and Tiszapüspöki. Different flood predictions drive our potential natural vegetation model, for which the flood models are built by the Middle Tisza Water Directorate. MPNV predictions assist the sustainable land use in the floodplains. The application is supported by an Interreg project called 'Danube FloodPlain'.

New application of MPNV for assessment of the future of wetlands in watersheds in collaboratin with WWF. 

We will estimate the potential impact of climate change on wetlands per watershed for the project “Municipalities as integrators and coordinators in adaptation to climate change” (LIFE-MICACC). We will use future multiple potential vegetation (MPNV) estimate to assess future potential distribution of wetlands under a medium climate change scenario and will identify current wetland stands that will fall outside or will become less probable member of the PNV distribution. We will quantify departure of the current distribution from the future potential, which will predict the potential impact of climate change.