This guide is about taking account of, and managing, ecosystems to help people adapt to climate change in coastal areas: coastal Ecosystem based Adaptation (EBA). Vital to human wellbeing, adaptation to climate change is increasingly important in international policy discussions such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which have acknowledged the potential importance of EBA in meeting this challenge. In coastal environments climate change impacts can be especially acute, and people’s dependence on services from ecosystems is often intricately tied to the security of their livelihoods. Coastal EBA is therefore of paramount importance and this guide is a strategic resource for those involved in its planning and implementation.
The guide is aimed at environmental and adaptation managers and planners, principally in government departments and agencies but also in business and civil society organisations. As such, the guide aims to provide a broad understanding of the principles and concepts of coastal EBA, present a range of different coastal EBA options, illustrated with existing examples, and discuss the issues and challenges that need addressing in EBA implementation. The guide is intended as a resource that can be consulted according to need. Together with the accompanying Coastal EBA Decision Support Tool (available online at http://web.unep.org/coastal-eba/ coastal-EBA-DST), it supports environmental decisionmakers in choosing, implementing, monitoring, evaluating and, over time, adaptively managing coastal EBA. Whilst some technical detail is included, the broad scope of this publication means it cannot include all of the practical detail required for coastal EBA implementation. For this reason, an important component of the guide is the list of useful resources under each of the main sections. Technical officers responsible for designing EBA projects will need to consult this literature and other source material.
