Evidence-based mangrove restoration and reforestation
Preparación de plántulas de manglar
INECC
Los miembros de la comunidad preparan árboles jóvenes de manglares
INECC
Instalación de "chinampas": montículos de barro flotantes para plántulas de manglares
INECC
Distribución de plántulas de manglar a los humedales por miembros de la comunidad
INECC
By making an alliance with a local civil association with a permanent presence in the area, INECC was able to better focus human and economic resources on the reforestation of 25 hectares of mangroves and the 3km clearing of channels for the restitution of the water flows of the wetland.
Mangrove reforestation was carried out using the "chinampas" technique (1 x 1m floating mud mounds) which served as a platform for the optimum growth of mangrove seedlings.
This technique, previously used in other neighboring areas, includes an ecological monitoring phase as well as geo-referenced photographic monitoring points to identify the evolution of the monthly growth of the seedlings in each of the almost six thousand established chinampas.
In addition, the direct participation of the communities in the activities provided empirical knowledge about the particularities of the land, and essential labor to dig open, by hand, the channels. The combination of technical and empirical knowledge has created evidence for the ecological modification of the landscape: the establishment of the chinampas has elevated the topography of the site, and the hydrological flows have brought nutrients and oxygen, creating ecological niches that the species occupy to restore the trophic chain.
Permanent and committed support from local NGOs with experience in community-based social work and in-depth knowledge of the area;
Sufficient economic and human resources to be able to employ local communities to carry out rehabilitation work;
Sufficient experience and empirical knowledge to be able to implement the technique of "chinampas";
Available land under protection schemes, to carry out wetland management and conservation strategies.
Per-diem payments to community members as an incentive for taking part in adaptation project implementation (restitution of mangroves and hydrological flows) have been considered by some of the project implementers as a successful way of ensuring active participation, and can work well and augment marginal incomes. The risks of relying on this approach, however, is that the strategy becomes unsustainable if the source of money dries up and active community participation become predicated on the receipt of payments for participating.
Problems for mangrove systems can be exacerbated by climatic events such as tropical storms that destroy parts of the mangrove. However, equally serious chronic problems can be caused by upstream activities, such as a reduction in river flows, due to the excessive extraction of water for agroindustrial and livestock purposes, which increase the problems of salinity and pollution in the mangrove system.
CityAdapt’s various implementation activities are carried out with demonstration sites to showcase benefits to surrounding populations and inspire replication. This includes demonstration sites for edible mushroom cultivation, urban gardens, roof rainwater harvesting systems, beekeeping, water infiltration systems, agroforestry, and other activities.
CityAdapt also emphasizes learning from project activities, especially for planning officials and communities to take ownership and help them continue after project end. It has therefore produced or is producing an array of knowledge products, including manuals, policy briefs, case studies, technical guidelines, and education material for children. A key aspect of this work has been highlighting NbS’ cost-effectiveness in comparison to conventional solutions (see story maps).
One key is a virtual class with 45 students that work on adaptation-related issues in their respective 17 countries. All the students reported an across-the-board improvement in their knowledge of NbS for urban adaptation. This class model will now be expanded to other regions. These learning components help to build the case for further NbS integration in urban planning and policy while spreading CityAdapt’s lessons to other actors interested in using NbS for their respective cities.
Key factors for this building block’s success are the baseline established by the vulnerability assessment, and the ongoing participation in activities by local communities.
Academic institutions with a local presence must be involved in the project, for example via master’s students’ thesis research. The academic institutions and their students need real-world projects for applied learning, and the adaptation activities need someone to carry on with monitoring and evaluation. This helps to ensure project sustainability and the continuity of project implementation and essential M&E tools. At the same time, local participation in monitoring (also referred to as citizen science in many contexts) is key for buy-in and ownership of activities, in addition to collecting useful data. School activities have been highly advantageous for generating local interest in project activities, as children take lessons learned home to share with their families. The pandemic has represented a major challenge to this effort, but the project has adapted, and created virtual educational games for children to play at home with their parents and teachers.
Building block 2: Nature-based Solutions for Adaptation via Sustainable Livelihoods and Green Infrastructure
Edible flat mushrooms produced in the peri-urban area of Xalapa
CityAdapt
Coffee plantations in peri-urban area of San Salvador restored with oak trees
CityAdapt
The Nature-based Solutions themselves are a core building block of the project. These solutions include reforestation, riparian restoration and infiltration trenches, the establishment of lineal, permeable trails for improved watershed functioning to reduce the risk of flooding and landslides during heavy rains, and water scarcity during dry periods. The tangible co-benefit of these measures is the reduction of disaster risk and easier access to water supplies, to name just two.
An integral part of these Nature-based Solutions is the creation of sustainable livelihoods that take pressure off ecosystems, including edible mushroom cultivation, beekeeping, urban agroforestry and gardening. The presence of these activities not only helps with decreasing pressure on ecosystems but also creating buy-in on the part of communities; they see a tangible economic benefit from the project and thus have a vested interest in its success. For example, mushroom cultivation has led to an additional source of income of $152 USD per month per plot for Xalapa households.
The inclusion of key community and government stakeholders is crucial for this building block’s success, in addition to the physical space and coordination among differing agency mandates needed to implement NbS on a scale that will lead to tangible benefits.
Identifying “hotspots,” or the most vulnerable areas of the community to implement NbS has been crucial to make the largest, and most visible, impact possible to prove the effectiveness of such solutions to the community. The project’s watershed perspective has also been critical for success, as it captures the ecosystem services (water infiltration) even when they extend beyond municipal limits to other jurisdictions. Community involvement is key to help avoid “maladaptation” or livelihood activities that will not be useful to communities or even add to existing problems (for example, crops that are not suited to a region’s soils), especially if there is a lack of interest or buy-in to continue them after the project has ended. Fruit trees and community gardens, for example, have proved to be successful sources of alternative livelihoods for different members of the community while helping to stabilize soils and regulate water flows. Co-benefits from livelihood creation and reduced damages from disasters are crucial for community and government buy-in and integration of NbS in future planning processes.
Building block 1: Gender-differentiated vulnerability assessment
Participatory process for vulnerability assessment
CityAdapt
This vulnerability assessment methodology allows for the accurate targeting of nature-based solutions to critical areas of need in cities and sectors of the population. It specifically includes a gender focus to ensure that adaptation efforts take into account how climate change affects women differently than men, given their varying roles in society. The vulnerability studies allow identifying the areas of greatest danger from weather-related events (such as landslides, floods, etc.) based on the exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity of the analyzed territory. They are carried out through participatory processes with communities and key stakeholders and climatic scenarios that integrate climatic, environmental and socioeconomic variables at the same time. The analysis also allows estimating the risk of loss of ecosystem services and therefore the potential needs for adaptation to climate change. This exercise is the basis for designing and implementing nature-based solutions to strengthen the resilience of communities in urban and peri-urban systems. Finally, this process builds a sense of co-ownership and relationships for partnerships to carry out the project.
One of the main conditions needed for this building block’s success is the inclusion and approval of local communities and key stakeholders within those communities and their respective governments. Additionally, strong sources of climate and hydrological data facilitate this analysis process greatly.
A key aspect of this block is access to data. For example, Mexico has abundant meteorological and hydrological data while El Salvador does not. This allowed for a much more thorough climate change scenario in the former case. In terms of the consultation process, capturing perceived risk, in addition to modeled risks, is key for developing targeted activities where they are most needed. In that process, including women through the gender-differentiated approach also contributes to better targeted adaptation efforts by successfully identifying socially vulnerable populations. During this vulnerability assessment, capacity building is essential to ensure that communities and policy makers can interpret and use the assessments subsequently.
Building block 1: Gender-differentiated vulnerability assessment
Building block 2: Nature-based Solutions for Adaptation via Sustainable Livelihoods and Green Infrastructure
Building block 3: Project Learning Activities
Strengthening the science-policy interface for socially inclusive governance
Workshop with decision-makers to analyze the applicability and usability of research tools and other outcomes within the protected area
UOC team
The elaboration of a plan for creating understanding and collaboration between researchers and decision-makers was a necessary tool to promote that scientific knowledge can have impacts on the policy domain. This plan entailed the following actions:
Face-to-face or online meetings to formally introduce the research project to the protected area decision-makers and managers while using media (e.g., radio and press), and developing seminars to inform local residents and other stakeholders about the project;
Invitation to decision-makers and managers to be involved in the project activities (e.g. local knowledge alliance, film and meetings);
Tailoring the research activities to the decision-makers agenda to facilitate their participation;
Organization of regular meetings, webinars and newsletters in local languages to inform about the project advances and findings;
Development of workshops with decision-makers to analyze the applicability and usability of resulting tools and other research outcomes within the protected area;
Dissemination of research reports in local language before academic article publications to validate the results;
Writing posts in the national park’s blog and other related websites to disseminate research findings within the protected area channels.
Conducted key-informant interviews with staff from the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park to identify the interests and needs of decision-makers and align our research activities;
Involved key staff from the National Park with the capacity to promote institutional changes and decisions to facilitate that our scientific insights might reach impacts on the management setting;
Organized a workshop with decision-makers to evaluate research tools in terms of applicability in the management cycle in order to facilitate their use by them.
An early exploration of the management and decision-making setting is relevant to plan for and develop solution-oriented research that can be implemented within the management cycle;
Periodical meetings between researchers and decision-makers help scientists gain awareness of the variety of directions in which their research can impact the policy domain, and decision-makers gain access to the best available evidence to make decisions. This is crucial to align research to the decision-makers' needs and facilitate the use of science in the management setting;
Producing scientific outcomes that are translatable into real outcomes in the management can motivate decision-makers to participate in the research;
Writing policy reports to introduce scientific insights into the native language facilitates the use of scientific information by decision-makers;
Planning the research activities so that overwhelming decision-makers with multiple requests is avoided.
