ABSTRACT
Global change, a term that adequately fi ts into the focus of this book, is broader than climate change and comprises the major anthropogenic forcings that produced a signifi cant change or impact on the natural environment during the last ~ 200 years. Global change issues have to be addressed with a planetary perspective, and as part of a time continuum, running from a few centuries ago, increasing its rates in the present and with implications in the near future. It is usually said that global change is an unprecedented human experiment on the planet, and as any experiment its consequences and reaches are to a certain degree, unpredictable.
