Benthic-based contributions to climate change mitigation and adaptation
Benthic-based contributions to climate change mitigation and adaptation
Innovative solutions to improve the condition and resilience of ecosystems are needed to address societal challenges and pave the way towards a climate-resilient future. Nature-based solutions offer the potential to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems while providing multiple other benefits for health, the economy, society and the environment. However, the implementation of nature-based solutions stems from a discourse that is almost exclusively derived from a terrestrial and urban context and assumes that risk reduction is resolved locally. We argue that this position ignores the importance of complex ecological interactions across a range of temporal and spatial scales and misses the substantive contribution from marine ecosystems, which are notably absent from most climate mitigation and adaptation strategies that extend beyond coastal disaster management. Here, we consider the potential of sediment-dwelling fauna and flora to inform and support nature-based solutions, and how the ecology of benthic environments can enhance adaptation plans. We illustrate our thesis with examples of practice that are generating, or have the potential to deliver, transformative change and discuss where further innovation might be applied. Finally, we take a reflective look at the realized and potential capacity of benthic-based solutions to contribute to adaptation plans and offer our perspectives on the suitability and shortcomings of past achievements and the prospective rewards from sensible prioritization of future research. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions'.
Habitat restoration, Marine protection, Natural capital, Nature-based solutions, Offshore development, Rewilding
1-11
Solan, Martin
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Bennett, Elena M.
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Mumby, Peter J.
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Leyland, Julian
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Godbold, Jasmin A.
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16 March 2020
Solan, Martin
c28b294a-1db6-4677-8eab-bd8d6221fecf
Bennett, Elena M.
69f7fe96-8dfd-48d8-9abb-e46fd8980bcf
Mumby, Peter J.
e1e4795a-9505-4e5d-ab03-f95ca645e627
Leyland, Julian
6b1bb9b9-f3d5-4f40-8dd3-232139510e15
Godbold, Jasmin A.
df6da569-e7ea-43ca-8a95-a563829fb88a
Solan, Martin, Bennett, Elena M., Mumby, Peter J., Leyland, Julian and Godbold, Jasmin A.
(2020)
Benthic-based contributions to climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 375 (1794), , [20190107].
(doi:10.1098/rstb.2019.0107).
Abstract
Innovative solutions to improve the condition and resilience of ecosystems are needed to address societal challenges and pave the way towards a climate-resilient future. Nature-based solutions offer the potential to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems while providing multiple other benefits for health, the economy, society and the environment. However, the implementation of nature-based solutions stems from a discourse that is almost exclusively derived from a terrestrial and urban context and assumes that risk reduction is resolved locally. We argue that this position ignores the importance of complex ecological interactions across a range of temporal and spatial scales and misses the substantive contribution from marine ecosystems, which are notably absent from most climate mitigation and adaptation strategies that extend beyond coastal disaster management. Here, we consider the potential of sediment-dwelling fauna and flora to inform and support nature-based solutions, and how the ecology of benthic environments can enhance adaptation plans. We illustrate our thesis with examples of practice that are generating, or have the potential to deliver, transformative change and discuss where further innovation might be applied. Finally, we take a reflective look at the realized and potential capacity of benthic-based solutions to contribute to adaptation plans and offer our perspectives on the suitability and shortcomings of past achievements and the prospective rewards from sensible prioritization of future research. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions'.
Text
solan et al sackler manuscript REVISED
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 27 November 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 27 January 2020
Published date: 16 March 2020
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
Data accessibility. This article has no additional data. Authors’ contributions. M.S., E.M.B. and P.J.M. designed the study. M.S. wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all co-authors contributed to subsequent iterations. Competing interests. We declare we have no competing interests. Funding. This work was supported by the Raymond and Beverly Sack-ler USA-UK Scientific Forum, jointly administered by The Royal Society UK and the National Academy of Sciences USA. M.S., J.L. and J.A.G. also acknowledge time allocated under the ‘Physical and biological dynamics of coastal processes and their role in coastal recovery (BLUE-coast)’ project (NE/N015703/1, 2016–2021), funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Acknowledgements. Conversations at ‘The 2018 Sackler Forum on Climate Change and Ecosystems’, which took place on the 8–9 November 2018 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, helped to frame the intellectual basis for this contribution.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society.
Keywords:
Habitat restoration, Marine protection, Natural capital, Nature-based solutions, Offshore development, Rewilding
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 439518
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/439518
ISSN: 0962-8436
PURE UUID: 909e73c4-1747-4c75-9fa5-feff789cefaa
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Date deposited: 24 Apr 2020 16:44
Last modified: 06 Jun 2024 01:50
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Author:
Elena M. Bennett
Author:
Peter J. Mumby
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