Cyprus Preparation Activities

Cyprus team has a lot of activities before to attend the Youth Exchange in Patra, Greece. Some of them were for envionmental sustainability, some of them of learning and acting with learning and some of them. Most of the activities were organised through online meetings with all the participants.  

Environmental Sustainability practices

Caledonia Waterfall Cleaning

On the 28th of April 2022, the Cypriot team organized a day trip to a waterfall in a local mountain village. We woke up and went to the start of the trail in the morning by bus. The plan was to clean the rubbish from the trail as we follow it. During our activity, we were able to have fun while doing something good for the environment. As we continued through the trail, we were surprised by the little to almost zero amounts of trash through the trail, showing the environmental awareness of people that visit these places.

Cleaning of a touristic Beach in Agia Napa at 12 of July 2022 

Due to our involvemment on the seminar of PULCHRA in Agia Napa team from Cyprus decided to clean the touristic beach in Agia Napa from plastics, tsigars, cans rabish that you can find always in touristic beaches. Our involvement to this activity had as aim to show to the people how to change with small changes thir hapis and to be doing more sustainables actions. 

Research from Cyprus team 

How global warming affects Cyprus:

Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth's climate system observed since the pre-industrial due to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere. It is caused by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mainly from human activities such as burning fossil fuels, and farming.

Due to its location, Cyprus has always enjoyed an unusually high number of sunny days, with the sun shining for an annual average of 75% of daylight hours. The climate has changed significantly over the 20th century. Measurements taken in the capital city of Nicosia show an increase in average temperature from 18.9 °C at the beginning of the 20th century, to 19.7 °C at its end, an increase of 0.8 °C. According to the Meteorological Service, rainfall has also declined at a rate of 1 mm per year over the 20th century. Deep water temperatures have also increased by 0.12 °C between 1959 and 1989. Projected increases in temperature range between a minimum increase of 3.6 °C and 5 °C by the end of the century. The number of very hot days on the island is projected to increase by more than two additional weeks per year, with the likely effect of creating an additional 9 days without rainfall per year.

Cyprus is situated in the Eastern Mediterranean and is described as "amongst the geographic areas that are most vulnerable to climate change". Because of the short residence time of waters, the Mediterranean Sea is considered a hot spot for climate change effects. According to climate projections, the Mediterranean Sea could become warmer. The decrease in precipitation over the region could lead to more evaporation ultimately increasing the Mediterranean Sea salinity. Because of the changes in temperature and salinity, the Mediterranean Sea may become more stratified by the end of the 21st century, with notable consequences on water circulation and biogeochemistry.

Studies have shown that in the eastern Mediterranean, the intensity, length and number of heat waves have increased by a factor of six to eight since the 1960s. Not all studies confirm these results of increasing trends, however. Heat wave characteristics have been assessed for a number of stations in the eastern Mediterranean (including three in Turkey and one in Cyprus) and the Middle East for the period 1973−2010. In this study a heat wave is defined as a period where the daily maximum temperature exceeds the 95th percentile of the time series of daily maximum temperature data for the summer season (here taken from the first of June to the first of November). The results showed that the number of heat waves increased during 1973−2010 at all stations. On the other hand, the maximum temperature during these heat waves did not change, implying no change in heat wave intensity. Furthermore, no significant trends in the heat wave
duration are observed.

The threats to Cyprus are not limited exclusively to climate change. Development pressure threatens nature and wildlife, mismanagement of soil contributes to land degradation and the island continues to face pollution on both the land and in the water. However, climate change poses a unique threat to Cyprus because it makes all of these issues worse.

Posters from Cyprus Team about Climate Change 

Learning About Circular Economy 

Students of our team presented the creation of a board game of Non Formal Education about circular economy that they created last year with the team of PULCHRA in the Lyceum with coordinator Mr Nikolas Nikolaou. 

In the link you can see the description of the game. 

Finally some group photos from the conference of PULCHRA