Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review

The notion of the natural environment embraces a whole of functioning interrelated elements (land surface and subsurface, air and water, soil and biota, organic and inorganic matter, as well as anthropogenic components) and natural, semi-natural and human-made systems linking these elements. The state development and conservation of Lithuanian natural environment components and resources make the core of the problem that the state and the community encounters under the conditions of the integrated and advancing impact of climatic changes and anthropogenic (technogenic) activities. The current climate changes cannot be dissociated from the challenges by economic globalisation, depletion of energy and resources, abatement of poverty, social inequality and lack of security; therefore, partial solutions would not remove the problems endangering the stability of the future. Analysing the processes taking place in the environment is very important in order to reveal the basic causal relationships of the environment and the factors affecting it. We shall never be able to solve successfully the environmental problems without understanding the whole system of relationships between the cause and the effect.