Global hotspots for coastal ecosystem-based adaptation

Description

Helping the world’s coastal communities adapt to climate change impacts requires evaluating the vulnerability of coastal communities and assessing adaptation options. This includes understanding the potential for "natural" infrastructure (ecosystems and the biodiversity that underpins them) to reduce communities’ vulnerability, alongside more traditional "hard" infrastructure approaches.

This article presents a spatially explicit global evaluation of the vulnerability of coastal-dwelling human populations to key climate change exposures and explores the potential for coastal ecosystems to help people adapt to climate change (ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA)).

Special focus is given to mangroves and coral reefs and their potential to dissipate storm surges and improve resilience against sea level rise effects.

This framework offers a tool for prioritizing "hotspots" of coastal EbA potential for further, national and local analyses to quantify risk reduction and, thereby, guide investment in coastal ecosystems to help people adapt to climate change. In doing so, it underscores the global role that conserving and restoring ecosystems can play in protecting human lives and livelihoods, as well as biodiversity, in the face of climate change.

Reference information