A Socio-Ecological Approach for Identifying and Contextualising Spatial Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Priorities at the Sub-National Level

Abstract

Climate change adds an additional layer of complexity to existing sustainable development and biodiversity conservation challenges. The impacts of global climate change are felt locally, and thus local governance structures will increasingly be responsible for preparedness and local responses. Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) options are gaining prominence as relevant climate change solutions. Local government officials seldom have an appropriate understanding of the role of ecosystem functioning in sustainable development goals, or access to relevant climate information. Thus the use of ecosystems in helping people adapt to climate change is limited partially by the lack of information on where ecosystems have the highest potential to do so. To begin overcoming this barrier, Conservation South Africa in partnership with local government developed a socio-ecological approach for identifying spatial EbA priorities at the sub-national level. Using GIS-based multi-criteria analysis and vegetation distribution models, the authors have spatially integrated relevant ecological and social information at a scale appropriate to inform local level political, administrative, and operational decision makers. This is the first systematic approach of which we are aware that highlights spatial priority areas for EbA implementation. Nodes of socio-ecological vulnerability are identified, and the inclusion of areas that provide ecosystem services and ecological resilience to future climate change is innovative. The purpose of this paper is to present and demonstrate a methodology for combining complex information into user-friendly spatial products for local level decision making on EbA. The authors focus on illustrating the kinds of products that can be generated from combining information in the suggested ways, and do not discuss the nuance of climate models nor present specific technical details of the model outputs here. Two representative case studies from rural South Africa demonstrate the replicability of this approach in rural and peri-urban areas of other developing and least developed countries around the world.

A multidisciplinary coastal vulnerability assessment for local government focused on ecosystems, Santa Barbara area, California

“…Local governments need multidisciplinary scientific information to plan climate change adaptation, including projections of physical impacts and an understanding of ecosystem response to climate change. Providing local governments with information for adaptation at the scale of the area they manage (Bourne et al, 2016), and enabling close collaboration between scientists and municipal staff (Wamsler et al, 2014) are vital to achieving practical implementation of ecosystem-based management.…”

Shaping conditions for entrepreneurship in climate change adaptation: a case study of an emerging governance arrangement in the Netherlands

“…Concerns often surface around the resilience of infrastructures and land use patterns, with a focus on technical and material measures (Feindt andNetherwood 2011, Bulkeley andCastán Broto 2013). Recent scholarly discussions, however, increasingly focus on the potential of ecosystem services to enhance resilience to climate change (Jones et al 2012, Bourne et al 2016). Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) uses biodiversity and ecosystem services to help people adapt to climate change and includes the conservation, restoration, and even creation of ecosystems (Brink et al 2016).…”

Ecosystem-based Adaptation: A review of the constraints

“…In the international climate policy arena, ecosystem-based approaches are argued to be able to "offer cost-effective, proven and sustainable solutions contributing to, and complementing, other national and regional adaptation strategies" (World Bank, 2009, p. 8). Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) in particular is now the preferred adaptation approach to climate change in the least developed and developing countries (Bourne et al, 2016;Pasquini and Cowling, 2015). This is based on the premise that adaptation strategies need to address both ecosystems and livelihoods, given these are crucially intertwined and both under a threat from climate change (Munroe et al, 2012;Roberts et al, 2012).…”

“…This is partly due to the very limited understanding of how EbA's effectiveness can be measured (Munroe et al, 2012), and monitoring and evaluating EbA projects and their specific outcomes (McKinnon and Hole, 2015). Many documents do not offer clear examples on how EbA has been implemented in practice or explain the main constraining factors including the kinds of information needs that have arisen in the process (exceptions include Bourne et al, 2016;Roberts et al, 2012). Some of these issues have been noted in recent EbA-specific review papers focusing on Green infrastructure in cities (Demuzere et al, 2014); Mainstreaming of EbA (Ojea, 2015); Progress and challenges for EbA (Chong, 2014); EbA and forests (Pramova et al, 2012); EbA in Europe (Doswald and Osti, 2011); EbA in cities (Geneletti and Zardo, 2016), and conceptualisation of EbA (Milman and Jagannathan, 2017;Scarano, 2017).…”