The Possible Global Role of Nature-Based Solutions in Reducing People’s Vulnerability to Climate Change

Douglas Becker, Camila Donatti, Robert I. McDonald, Carter Brandon, Cameryn Brock, Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer, Loan Diep, Giacomo Fedele , Nancy Grimm , David Hole, Holly Jones, Mark Mulligan, Rachel Neugarten, Jeffrey Opperman, Stephen Polasky, Patrick Roehrdanz, Alex Zvoleff

While climate mitigation is essential for maintaining global mean temperature within 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, climate adaptation is necessary both now and in the coming decades. Ecosystems provide a wide array of services, including those that can reduce the negative impacts of climate change. Actions that solve problems using ecosystem services, called Nature-based Solutions (NbS), include ecosystem conservation, restoration, or improved land management. We computed the vulnerability of the global human population to eight climate change impacts – coastal flooding, food insecurity, heat waves, landslides, river flooding, vector-borne diseases, water stress, and wildfires – and identified areas where ecosystem conservation, restoration, or improved land management could potentially reduce people’s vulnerability to climate impacts. Our results indicate that 7.5 billion people are projected to be vulnerable to at least one climate impact by 2030, and NbS can reduce the vulnerability of up to 5.1 billion. We estimate that ecosystem conservation could potentially reduce climate vulnerability of over two billion people; ecosystem restoration could do so for almost sixty million people; and sustainable land management practices for about four billion people. While we do not quantify the effect of NbS on reducing climate impacts, i.e., we did not conduct a quantitative evaluation of the role of nature for climate adaptation, This study is a key first step in identifying areas where nature could possibly help people adapt to climate change, where such effects could be further explored, and where synergies with biodiversity conservation, climate mitigation, and other benefits to people could be found.