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Ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change: defining hotspot municipalities for policy design and implementation in Brazil

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Abstract

We developed an indicator that defines priority municipalities in order to facilitate the deployment of preventive policies and strategies for ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change (EbA) in Brazilian municipalities. Based on the premises that poor people are the population most vulnerable to climate change and that conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystems are adaptive to climate change, our indicator uses three parameters: (1) poverty, (2) proportion of natural-vegetation cover, and (3) exposure to climate change. Thus, we searched for Brazilian municipalities that simultaneously belonged to the quartile of municipalities with the highest percentage of poverty, the quartile with the highest percentage of natural-vegetation cover, and the quartile with the highest exposure indices in two global climate models (Eta-HadGEM, Eta-Miroc). We found 398 (7.1%) EbA hotspots among 5565 Brazilian municipalities, which comprise 36% of the total area of native remnants in the country and are home to 22% of the poor people in Brazil. In their majority, these municipalities cover significant portions of the Amazon, Cerrado, Caatinga, and Atlantic forest, and indeed, these regions are recognised as some of the most vulnerable to climate change in the world. Considering the relevance of these biomes for the global water and nutrient cycle (Amazon), global food security (Cerrado), vulnerability to desertification (Caatinga), and biodiversity (all) we discuss the adaptive strategies in place, the need to bring them to scale, and existing policy gaps. Finally, in an effort to guide international and national investment and policies, we discuss how the approach described here can be applied to societies inhabiting tropical forests, savannas, and semiarid zones in other parts of the world. In particular, we propose that the indicator developed here is a simple and fast way to achieve early detection of priority municipalities for deployment of EbA action and policies, particularly in tropical developing countries.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Patricia Baião and Thiago Pinheiro for initial discussions and to Luís Barbosa for assistance with data analysis and production of maps.

Funding

FRS is supported by the Brazilian Platform of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (CNPq, Biota-Fapesp, FBDS). JMCS is supported by the University of Miami and the Swift Action Fund.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Conservation International do Brasil, Rio Branco Avenue, 131-8° floor, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 20040006, Brazil

    Thaís Pacheco Kasecker

  2. Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, CCS, IB, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 21941970, Brazil

    Thaís Pacheco Kasecker & Fabio Rubio Scarano

  3. The Nature Conservancy, Brasilia, Brazil

    Mario Barroso Ramos-Neto

  4. University of Miami, Miami, USA

    Jose Maria Cardoso da Silva

  5. Fundação Brasileira para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Fabio Rubio Scarano

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  1. Thaís Pacheco Kasecker
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  4. Fabio Rubio Scarano
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Correspondence to Thaís Pacheco Kasecker.

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Kasecker, T.P., Ramos-Neto, M.B., da Silva, J.M.C. et al. Ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change: defining hotspot municipalities for policy design and implementation in Brazil. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 23, 981–993 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-017-9768-6

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