Within the Wallasea Project, land-raising and landscape engineering was innovatively approached by creating a novel public private partnership. Materials from the Crossrail tunneling project were transported to a low-lying coastal area at high risk of flooding, in order to raise the land. The project thus established a precedent for using largely waste material generated by a major infrastructure project to meet biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation aims elsewhere. Financing stemmed from both the private company Crossrail as well as from the Environment Agency, with all parties profiting due to the economic as well as environmental benefits set off by recycling the leftover materials. With Crossrail on board as a delivery partner, the project represents a partnership between Europe's largest civil engineering project and Europe's largest intertidal habitat creation project.

The implementation process began with the founding of the PHOENIX-See Entwicklungsgesellschaft (EG ) - as a subsidiary of the municipal utility company - to manage this large-scale project. An external project leader was employed and expert engineering offices were contracted. The EG was involved on all topics relating to water management of the Emscher and the Pheonix lake. From the governmental side, a large number of agencies were involved in the process. Public participation was realized through formal and informal meetings and discussions. Of importance were also the feasibility and assessment studies initiated in 2001 to improve the design of the solution and convince decision makers that the risks involved were acceptable. The plan was finally approved in 2005, with digging operations starting in 2006. A year later, the new wastewater sewer was finished and in 2009 the renatured Emscher started to flow in its new bed. Finally, the lake was flooded in 2010 and officially opened in 2011. The construction of houses along the lake started in this period and in 2013 the Entwicklungsgesellschaft “delivered” the lake back to the city of Dortmund.

As this solution serves various goals and meets several objectives, it was possible to secure sufficient funding from diverse parties, domains and funding bodies to cover the entire implementation of the project. In the case of the creation of Lake Phoenix, this included funding for water management from the water board; funding for ecology from the ecological funding program by the federal state; funding for urban development from etc. The water board, for instance, provided the amount of money that was already budgeted for the construction of a flood retention basin. This basin was not needed anymore, as the lake solution already provided the required flood retention function. Some additional potential funding sources were not even used in the end, because it would have slowed down the marketing of the real estate and would have tied the project to certain restrictions, which were not desired by the decision-makers.

In order to find an EbA solution for e.g. the development of an area in which multiple actors have an interest in, it is important to synergistically combine various interests, ambitions, challenges and goals.

This process had been led by General Department of Land Administration (GDLA), and Department of Appraisal and Environmental Impact Assessment (DAEIA) under Vietnam Environment Administration (VEA) with technical support from GIZ and in collaboration with Institute of Strategy and Policy for Natural Resources and Environment (ISPONRE). This was the first-ever effort had been made in this regard in Vietnam without any precedence. SEA constitutes a frontline tool for mainstreaming a range of sustainability related concerns in so-called ‘strategic’ decisions over the world. This is reflected, for example, in the increasing range of issues that both EIA and SEA have been expected to encompass: from human health and well-being to climate change adaptation. Vietnam has a fairly well institutionalized system of SEA, with the first legislation having been introduced in 2005 and a second generation legal framework being implemented in 2011. Thus SEA is considered as a good opportunity/vehicle to add on EbA topic into the strategic planning process. Expected impacts include an improvement of the regulatory framework for integrating EbA into the SEA process and the planning process in Viet Nam.

Provincial institutions (government officials and training institutions) develop capacities to mainstreaming EbA based on a capacity development strategy (CDS) along 4 dimensions: people, organizations, networks& cooperation, and framework conditions. The CDS and roll out includes the following steps: 1. Capacity&needs assessment of a) target groups on EbA knowledge and learning habits via interviews b) 10 potential training service providers taking into account training experiences of international organizations (IUCN, WWF, UNDP). 2. Elaborating tailor-made training materials on the GIZ “Integrating climate change adaptation into development with a focus on ecosystem-based Adaptation” based on the Harvard Case Method and adapted to the Vietnamese context with IPCC SREX report terminology. 3. Carrying out a test training to come up with an intercultural sensitive didactic concepts and key topics. 4. Conduct ToTs for training service providers to institutionalize the EbA training in the long term. 25 participants from 4 different experienced training service providers in Vietnam were trained. 5. Conduct customized trainings for provincial technical staff by service providers bassed on TOT experiences.

Top-Down is the process to create broader political awareness of the issue. It includes advocacy for national and international support. Commonly a concept paper that explains the problem initiates this process with further research to support and document the issues. It is important to appeal to the news media, as their attention is necessary to heighten the political awareness of the issues and to convey the information to the public, resulting in the creation of a broader public demand for action. Media attention mobilizes national and international engagement and can foster domestic and international resource mobilization. In our experience, public opinion plays a decisive role in dictating the political agenda to local leaders as well as national decision makers.

Local stakeholders learn to become environmental leaders. They learn about their water reality. When people understand the local problems and their community's responsibility, they can meet and engage with similar groups of stakeholders from other communities across the conflict. The common ground for these cross conflict meetings is the safeguard of the shared watershed and the communities engage in productive meetings to identify solutions. Together they identify projects that speak to the self-interest of both sides. Through this process, the communities gain the capacity to advance solutions even within a turbulent political environment. In most cases, the combination of a strong youth program and outspoken adult leadership creates the political will of mayors and other municipal leaders to get involved.

The aim of developing a transboundary action plan was to ensure the future of the cooperation among the five protected areas across international borders for continued nature protection and sustainable nature tourism. The plan is available in English, Finnish, and Russian, and is divided into two main parts. Part A describes characteristics of the area, including basic information about natural and cultural history, legislation, land use, and management of the areas. Basic information is useful for those curious about the transboundary area. Management plans, area plans, and regional plans are needed for coordinating nature protection and sustainable nature tourism between and within countries. Knowledge of international agreements, legislation, practices and planning in each area is also needed for transboundary cooperation. In part B, the 10-year vision describes the joint aims and strategies of the the cooperation. Mutual strategies include: cooperation, nature monitoring, dissemination of information and nature tourism. Finally concrete actions are suggested, and more concrete plans can be made to guide short-term planning. The plan was therefore considered as an advisory plan, focusing on common long-term guidance.

To stop ongoing erosion along the coastline breakwater fences were installed. This building block addresses the coastline protection in the Mekong Delta area of South Vietnam. In particular the T-shaped bamboo fences are designed and placed at severe erosion sites. Through the transformation of waves and the loss of their force the fences cause the settlement of transported sand and mud particles. The result is enhanced sedimentation alongside the coastline. On these newly created mudflats, mangroves can naturally grow within months. On an overall length of 12 km breakwater fences were set up by the programme. In the provinces of Bac Lieu and Soc Trang 99% of the coasts are now no longer directly threatened by water at the dyke. The breakwater fences have not only stopped the loss of land to the sea of up to 50m per year, but have completely reversed this trend by winning back land. This success has been achieved due to a vertical sedimentation of up to 120 cm. This higher floodplain has created a natural protection of the dyke toe and for recruiting mangroves. Additionally the natural biodiversity has been recovered by 70% after 4 years. In one province the diversity of species was comparable to a natural forest after 18 months.