Lead Authors: Marco Bindi (Italy), Sally Brown (UK), Ines Camilloni (Argentina), Arona Diedhiou (Ivory Coast/Senegal), Riyanti Djalante (Japan/Indonesia), Kristie L. Ebi (USA), Francois Engelbrecht (South Africa), Joel Guiot (France), Yasuaki Hijioka (Japan), Shagun Mehrotra (USA/India), Antony Payne (UK), Sonia I. Seneviratne (Switzerland), Adelle Thomas (Bahamas), Rachel Warren (UK), Guangsheng Zhou (China)

Impacts of 1.5°C Global Warming on Natural and Human Systems

Coral reefs can provide significant coastal protection benefits to people and property. Here we show that the annual expected damages from flooding would double, and costs from frequent storms would triple without reefs. For 100-year storm events, flood damages would increase by 91% to $US 272 billion without reefs. The countries with the most to gain from reef management are Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Mexico, and Cuba; annual expected flood savings exceed $400 M for each of these nations. Sea-level rise will increase flood risk, but substantial impacts could happen from reef loss alone without better near-term management. We provide a global, process-based valuation of an ecosystem service across an entire marine biome at (sub)national levels. These spatially explicit benefits inform critical risk and environmental management decisions, and the expected benefits can be directly considered by governments (e.g., national accounts, recovery plans) and businesses (e.g., insurance). Coral reefs provide significant coastal protection from storms but they have experienced significant losses. Here the authors show that the annual damages from flooding would double globally without reefs and they quantify where reefs provide the most protection to people and property.

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The global flood protection savings provided by coral reefs

There is growing awareness that ‘nature-based solutions' (NbS) can help to protect us from climate change impacts while slowing further warming, supporting biodiversity and securing ecosystem servi...

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstb.2019.0120

Understanding the value and limits of nature-based solutions to climate change and other global challenges

The term Blue Carbon (BC) was first coined a decade ago to describe the disproportionately large contribution of coastal vegetated ecosystems to global carbon sequestration. The role of BC in climate change mitigation and adaptation has now reached international prominence. To help prioritise future research, we assembled leading experts in the field to agree upon the top-ten pending questions in BC science. Understanding how climate change affects carbon accumulation in mature BC ecosystems and during their restoration was a high priority. Controversial questions included the role of carbonate and macroalgae in BC cycling, and the degree to which greenhouse gases are released following disturbance of BC ecosystems. Scientists seek improved precision of the extent of BC ecosystems; techniques to determine BC provenance; understanding of the factors that influence sequestration in BC ecosystems, with the corresponding value of BC; and the management actions that are effective in enhancing this value. Overall this overview provides a comprehensive road map for the coming decades on future research in BC science.

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The future of Blue Carbon science

Strong decreases in greenhouse gas emissions are required to meet the reduction trajectory resolved within the 2015 Paris Agreement. However, even these decreases will not avert serious stress and damage to life on Earth, and additional steps are needed to boost the resilience of ecosystems, safeguard their wildlife, and protect their capacity to supply vital goods and services. We discuss how well-managed marine reserves may help marine ecosystems and people adapt to five prominent impacts of climate change: acidification, sea-level rise, intensification of storms, shifts in species distribution, and decreased productivity and oxygen availability, as well as their cumulative effects. We explore the role of managed ecosystems in mitigating climate change by promoting carbon sequestration and storage and by buffering against uncertainty in management, environmental fluctuations, directional change, and extreme events. We highlight both strengths and limitations and conclude that marine reserves are a viable low-tech, cost-effective adaptation strategy that would yield multiple cobenefits from local to global scales, improving the outlook for the environment and people into the future.

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Marine reserves can mitigate and promote adaptation to climate change.

INTRODUCTION: Corps of Engineers planners have been required to consider risk and uncertainty since the Principles and Standards Act of 1972. The Actions for Change are increasing the Corps of Engineers’ reliance on risk-informed analysis and decision making. An informal review of the Corps’ experience with ecosystem restoration plans has shown few, if any, systematic efforts to address the often significant uncertainties encountered in estimating and quantifying environmental benefits. Better evaluation of these uncertainties and consequent project risks will improve the quality of ecosystem restoration planning efforts. The purpose of this technical note is to encourage the systematic and routine consideration of uncertainty when estimating environmental benefits of ecosystem restoration projects. To that end, this note will address:  Reasons for addressing uncertainty.  The language and meaning of uncertainty.  Appropriate conditions for uncertainty analysis.  Methodologies and tools appropriate for uncertainty analysis. WHY CONDUCT UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS? Uncertainty analysis is done to improve the quality of decisions that must be made when it is not possible to have all the desired information. Uncertainty analysis adds value to the decision-making process for the Corps, its stakeholders, and the public. It enables the Corps to better manage ecosystem restoration projects to achieve desired outcomes for national ecosystem restoration, national and regional economic development, and other social effects.

Kelly A. Burks-Copes

Papers

Addressing Risk and Uncertainty in Planning Ecological Restoration Projects