Wetlands, like peatlands, marshes and mangrove forests, provide valuable solutions to climate change impacts. They act as flood and drought buffers by enabling slow absorption of large amounts of water, high-altitude wetlands provide baseflows for many rivers and act as buffers for glacial melts, and peatlands act as carbon sinks. However, wetlands are also amongst the most vulnerable ecosystems to climate change, being affected by increased temperatures, modified precipitation, raised sea levels, and increases in extreme weather events. Moreover, when damaged, peatlands can release greenhouse gases. Integrating climate risks in wetlands management is, thus, vital and will play a critical role in mitigation and adaptation in a changing climate.
This guide is an assessment methodology for integrated site-level climate risk assessment and adaptation planning. It has been developed by the project “Wetlands management for biodiversity and climate protection”, which is implemented through the International Climate Initiative (IKI) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) in collaboration between the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), the GIZ and Wetlands International South Asia.
The guide demonstrates how climate risks can be integrated in site-level wetland management to capture co-benefits while maintaining the wise use approach of the Ramsar Convention on wetlands. It sets out a simple and flexible process that can accommodate inputs of scientific evidence, expert judgment and community knowledge, and includes various participatory elements like stakeholder discussions and field missions. The method can be used at community or expert level and can be exercised over a few days or many weeks.
The guide provides a framework for systematically ranking climate change impacts and adaptation responses. It is best used as a priority-setting process for mainstreaming climate change in site management, even in situations of scarce resources and limited information.
The process recommended by the methodology has three main phases: vulnerability assessment (chapter 4), adaptation planning (chapter 5) and adaptation implementation and review (chapter 6).
