Conserving existing ecosystems and restoring degraded ones is critical for maintaining and enhancing climate resilience. These efforts that center nature-based solutions provide essential regulating services that protect people from hazards like flooding and coastal storms. To assist planners and decision makers in implementing these strategies effectively and have the greatest impact, the most promising locations for ecosystem conservation and restoration were identified and involved a comprehensive, data-driven approach.
Advanced mapping models—called InVEST models—were used to evaluate four key ecosystem services: sediment retention, flood mitigation, coastal risk reduction, and water recharge. For example, the analysis included understanding how forests retaining sediments protects downstream populations and road infrastructure, and how flood mitigation can safeguard communities in floodplains.
To ensure these areas are resilient to climate change over the long-term, the analyses were taken a step further by modeling each ecosystem service under current and future climate conditions. By extending the analysis to future scenarios, the results revealed specific hotspots of ecosystem service provision that are robust to ongoing climate change. It shows exactly which areas would be best for conservation and restoration to support climate resilience, both at the national and district and municipal levels in both countries.
We created two basic scenarios answering two questions: what currently forested areas provide these benefits to the most people and roads downstream? Where could we restore currently degraded areas to enhance these benefits for the most people and infrastructure downstream?
