Introduction

This introduction outlines the content, the language, and the structure of the present volume, a widely referenced guidance for anyone who wishes to quantitatively assess climate change threats to seabirds in the North-East Atlantic. The book has a bipartite structure for each seabird species examined – auks, ducks and phalaropes, gannets and cormorants, gulls, loons/divers and grebes, petrels and shearwaters, skuas, and terns. The first section reviews the vulnerability of each seabird species and their habitats to climate change. The second section lists and estimates the effectiveness of local preventive actions to limit the impacts of climate change through specific criteria. Complementary appendixes contain additional information on sources, references and the methodology used by the contributors to this volume.