Moldovia’s Challenge in the Face of Surface Water Resource Changes

Abstract

Processes of global environmental change have had various effects upon Moldova within the last decades, both positive and negative. However, it appears that negative effects prevail, especially regarding availability of water resources during the vegetation-growing period. The impact of economic transition has had a diminishing effect on the availability of water resources. Combined with climate change trends, this double effect threatens national economy and food security, and increases the vulnerability of the population to such change. In this paper, special attention has been paid to analyzing changes in water-covered areas during the transition period in order to reveal recent tendencies and find possible adaptation solutions to the issue of climate change. ``Spontaneous{''} concentration of reservoirs and ponds around big cities was found to be a distinct feature in recent evolutions. At the same time, in initially water scarce regions (such as in the southern part of the country) the water-covered area has diminished even more drastically (by more than 40% in extreme cases). Adaptation measures must be territorially and typologically differentiated in order to achieve maximum effect and diminish social vulnerability of the population.