Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Planning for Mangrove Systems

Drawing on pilot activities in Cameroon, Tanzania, and Fiji under the GEF-funded “Coastal Resilience to Climate Change” project, WWF has developed a methodology that can be used worldwide for assessing the vulnerability of mangrove ecosystems to the impacts of climate change (particularly sea level rise) and for developing adaptation strategies. This manual brings together a wealth of on-the-ground experience and scientific knowledge to help conservation practitioners, protected area managers and other stakeholders who are responsible for protecting and managing the world’s mangrove forests in a changing climate. 

The manual walks readers through a series of eight methods for assessing the vulnerability of mangrove ecosystems to climate change, and assists them inplanning adaptation activities. The methods include field-based techniques to assess forest condition and health; as well as more sophisticated approaches for understanding past and present change, like GIS and stratigraphic analysis.

What makes this manual unique is the degree to which the methods were developed through intensive fieldwork. Each of the methods is paired with a case study from WWF’s pilot activities that clearly describes how the method was carried out and how the results were analyzed. Guidance is given on how to combine the results from each method to form a composite understanding of vulnerability for a given mangrove area; and how to select and prioritize adaptation strategies for reducing that area’s vulnerability to climate change.

Some excellent materials for vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning have appeared in recent years. But there are still relatively few manuals that are geared towards a specific ecosystem type, contain methods based on significant field experience, and are available in a user-friendly format. This manual was explicitly designed to be both scientifically rigorous and extremely practical.  WWF hopes that it will be a useful tool in efforts to help the world’s mangroves thrive in the future.