Intro to Ecosystem-based Adaptation: A Nature-based Response to Climate Change

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Introduction to Ecosystem-based Adaptation: A Nature-based 
response to climate change. 
Prepared by Tine Rossing, Ecolibrio Consulting 
 
What is Ecosystem-based Adaptation? 
 
Climate change, combined with pollution, over-exploitation and human encroachment, are increasingly altering 
and degrading ecosystems and their ability to deliver the services that are vital to human lives and wellbeing 
(World Bank 2014). If conserved, restored and well-managed, however, these ecosystems can help enhance the 
resilience of people to the impacts of climate change, while providing multiple benefits to both society and the 
environment (Colls and others 2009).  Ecosystem-based adaptation – or EbA for short - is therefore being 
increasingly promoted as a nature-based approach that actively uses biodiversity and ecosystem services to help 
people adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.  
 
The Convention on Biological Diversity defines EbA as “the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of an 
overall adaptation strategy to help people to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change” (CBD 2010).  
 
EbA involves the conservation, sustainable management and restoration of ecosystems – such as forests, 
grasslands, wetlands, or coral reefs - to reduce the harmful impacts of climate hazards including shifting patterns or 
levels of rainfall, changes in maximum and minimum temperatures, stronger storms, and increasingly variable 
climatic conditions.  
 
Specific actions can be planting vegetation on slopes to prevent landslides, restoring coastal habitats to address sea 
level rise and storm surges, applying integrated water resource management to address water shortages, and 
managing forests sustainably to prevent erosion and regulate water flow.  Healthy ecosystems can play a vital role 
in reducing disaster risk by acting as natural buffers or protective barriers to floods and landslides. They can also 
effectively act as water filtration and absorption systems. 
 
The EbA approach rests on combining local knowledge with evolving information on climate change. EbA measures 
can be implemented on their own or in combination with engineered approaches (such as the construction 
of water reservoirs or dykes), hybrid measures that combine man-made and natural elements (such as artificial 
reefs) and approaches that strengthen the capacities of individuals and institutions to address climate risks (such as 
the introduction of early warning systems). 
 
The importance of managing, conserving and restoring ecosystems to be climate-
resilient 
 
Central to the concept of EbA is the importance of seeing beyond the role of ecosystems as providers of a set of 
static ‘natural resources’ and instead seeing them as generators of a number of inter-connected ecosystem services 
(Reid and Alam 2014). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) report defines these services and their 
importance to human wellbeing, as shown in Figure 1 below. 
 
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