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Adaptation policies to increase terrestrial ecosystem resilience: potential utility of a multicriteria approach

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Abstract

Climate change is rapidly undermining terrestrial ecosystem resilience and capacity to continue providing their services to the benefit of humanity and nature. Because of the importance of terrestrial ecosystems to human well-being and supporting services, decision makers throughout the world are busy creating policy responses that secure multiple development and conservation objectives— including that of supporting terrestrial ecosystem resilience in the context of climate change. This article aims to advance analyses on climate policy evaluation and planning in the area of terrestrial ecosystem resilience by discussing adaptation policy options within the ecology-economy-social nexus. The paper evaluates these decisions in the realm of terrestrial ecosystem resilience and evaluates the utility of a set of criteria, indicators, and assessment methods, proposed by a new conceptual multi-criteria framework for pro-development climate policy and planning developed by the United Nations Environment Programme. Potential applications of a multicriteria approach to climate policy vis-à-vis terrestrial ecosystems are then explored through two hypothetical case study examples. The paper closes with a brief discussion of the utility of the multi-criteria approach in the context of other climate policy evaluation approaches, considers lessons learned as a result efforts to evaluate climate policy in the realm of terrestrial ecosystems, and reiterates the role of ecosystem resilience in creating sound policies and actions that support the integration of climate change and development goals.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank William Cheung and Bob Scholes for helpful reviews, Elizabeth Malone for her comments and suggestions, and Anthony Janetos for his support and guidance in the development of earlier versions of this paper. We thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on this manuscript, and Serban Scrieciu and Zaid Chalabi for their unfaltering dedication as editors of this special issue.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, 2181 LeFrak Hall, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    Ariane de Bremond

  2. Joint Global Change Research Institute, 5825 University Research Court, Suite 3500, College Park, MD, 20740, USA

    Ariane de Bremond

  3. The World Bank, Washington, DC, USA

    Nathan L. Engle

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  1. Ariane de Bremond
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Correspondence to Ariane de Bremond.

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de Bremond, A., Engle, N.L. Adaptation policies to increase terrestrial ecosystem resilience: potential utility of a multicriteria approach. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 19, 331–354 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-014-9541-z

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