A new Spanish publication on integrating Ecosystem-based Adaptation into water management and planning in Bolivia and Mexico is now available online. Under the title “Planificación Hídrica de la GIRH a partir de la Herramienta PAMIC de Adaptación basada en Ecosistemas (AbE)“, author Sergio Marcelo Villa Gomez Gironda analyses how Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) can and needs to incorporate ecosystem-based adaptation approaches as a mechanism for people, ecosystems and climate change to increase their collective resilience.

Bolivia, within the framework of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and Integrated Watershed Management (IWM), applies a programmatic approach and framework of structural measures and capacity building (community-based) to address the country’s water insecurity. Despite its generally favourable results, it has not yet been able to adapt to extreme climate change and the growing demand for water by the population. For this reason, there is a need to strengthen the country’s water planning through alternative adaptation mechanisms, from which arises the opportunity to couple planning processes with an ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) approach.

In this context, the article explores the application of the PAMIC water planning tool in Mexico, which uses ecosystem conservation as a mechanism to increase climate, ecosystem and anthropogenic resilience in the national context. The author analyses whether it is possible to improve water planning in micro- and sub-basins through this tool, by integrating ecosystem vulnerability into IWRM. Main findings of the analysis are:

• Integrated Water Resources Management needs to incorporate ecosystem conservation as a mechanism for people, ecosystems and climate change to increase their collective resilience.
• The PAMIC tool is a successful example of watershed-based planning that uses ecosystem functions to streamline the response to climate change impacts and disaster risk reduction.