Socio-Economic Assessment of Ecosystem-Based and Other Adaptation Strategies in Coastal Areas

SCORE project partners, ENT, IHS, Tero and ENoLL, published a paper in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering. This paper is available in open access.

Abstract

Coastal areas are highly vulnerable to climate-change hazards (e.g., sea-level rise, flooding, coastal erosion), which can lead to significant impacts at the ecosystem and societal level. Interest in ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is gaining importance due to its potential multiple benefits, including social and environmental aspects, when compared to more traditional approaches such as hard engineering interventions. When assessing EbA strategies, further understanding of the natureā€“society functions, processes, values, and benefits is needed to increase its application. This study contributes to better knowledge of EbA and other adaptation strategies by developing a systematic literature review of studies performing socio-economic assessments of climate-change adaptation in coastal areas. The analysis of 54 publications revealed that costā€“benefit analysis was applied in most studies, followed by multi-criteria analysis and other techniques. Hybrid adaptation strategies based on different combinations of hard, soft, and EbA interventions were considered as potential optimal solutions in a significant part of the assessments. This study shows some potential co-benefits of EbA, such as livelihood diversification or biodiversity conservation, but also stresses the need for further research on this topic, as well as on evaluating how EbA performs in the long term under changing climate-condition scenarios.

References

Title:Ā Socio-Economic Assessment of Ecosystem-Based and Other Adaptation Strategies in Coastal Areas: A Systematic Review

Authors:Ā Mar Riera-Spiegelhalder, LuĆ­s Campos-Rodrigues, Elena Marie EnseƱado, Janneke den Dekker-Arlain, Olympia Papadopoulou, Stratos Arampatzis and Koen Vervoort

Cite as: Riera-Spiegelhalder, M.; Campos-Rodrigues, L.; EnseƱado, E.M.; Dekker-Arlain, J.d.; Papadopoulou, O.; Arampatzis, S.; Vervoort, K. Socio-Economic Assessment of Ecosystem-Based and Other Adaptation Strategies in Coastal Areas: A Systematic Review. J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2023, 11, 319. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse11020319

Publication date 15 February 2023 /