Harnessing nature to help people adapt to climate change

✍ Scribed by Jones, Holly P.; Hole, David G.; Zavaleta, Erika S.

• Book ID: 111907515
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Year: 2012
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 852 KB
• Volume: 2
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1758-678X
• DOI: 10.1038/nclimate1463

✦ Synopsis

Adapting to climate change is among the biggest challenges humanity faces in the next century. An overwhelming focus of adaptation strategies to reduce climate change-related hazards has been on hard-engineering structures such as sea walls, irrigation infrastructure and dams. Closer attention to a broader spectrum of adaptation options is urgently needed. In particular, ecosystem-based adaptation approaches provide flexible, cost-effective and broadly applicable alternatives for buffering the impacts of climate change, while overcoming many drawbacks of hard infrastructure. As such, they are a critical tool at adaptation planners' disposal for tackling the threats that climate change poses to peoples' lives and livelihoods.