Euro-Wallasea - ecosystem services under the spotlight

Our Wild Coast Project has recently been one of 5 case studies in an international report analysing the cost benefits of large projects with high biodiversity relevance, comparing traditional engineered approaches with ecosystem-based approaches.
The study financed by the European Commission, has been carried out by the Ecologic Institute, Berlin in co-operation with the Environmental Change Institute (ECI), Oxford University Centre for the Environment and places these projects in a position to potentially contribute to a range of EU, national and regional policies within the area of climate change adaptation and mitigation. Countries analysed included statements that show their acknowledgment of the inevitability of climate change.
In response to growing climate change pressures, ecosystem-based approaches such as ours have emerged as a promising strategy to increase the resilience of ecosystems and support sustainable livelihoods. These creative approaches address the crucial links between climate change, biodiversity and sustainable resource management and thus provide multiple benefits.
Highlighting the multiple benefits provided by ecosystem-based approaches (as compared to traditional engineered solutions) and providing evidence on their cost-effectiveness can boost the uptake of such approaches. In the case of the Wallasea Island Project, an important benefit of using ecosystem-based approaches was that the project could draw on waste material produced in urban transport excavations that would otherwise have to be transported and disposed of in another way, possibly incurring greater costs.
The main benefit provided by the vast majority of ecosystem-based projects is the potential to mitigate climate change by increased carbon sequestration. Some of the investigated ecosystem-based projects aim at regulating flood events by providing additional retention areas along rivers and coasts. In general, ecosystem-based projects protect the local ecosystem and often lead to an increase in biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. Landscape amenities were reported to have lead to a better quality of space and to an upward revaluation of the neighborhood due to the aesthetic value of protected wetlands.
Projects using ecosystem-based- approaches also provide employment opportunities either directly (through management, administration and construction) or indirectly through jobs that are being created in tourism and landscape management. In addition to the above findings, this study has produced lessons and recommendations for implementing ecosystem-based approaches in Europe and for integrating such approaches in policies and strategies relevant for climate change at different spatial levels as well as for supporting the EU 2020 Biodiversity Policy and work on the planned EU Green Infrastructure Strategy.

The report is available for download at http://ecologic.eu/files/attachments/Projects/2345_eba_ebm_cc_finalreport_23nov2011.pdf