How SIDS Can Leverage Their Natural Assets to Enhance Climate Resilience
Despite covering only 0.5% of the world’s surface area, SIDS host more than 20% of its biodiversity, and 40% of its coral reefs. This biodiversity supports local livelihoods (tourism contributes to 30% of GDP on average for SIDS), but it is at risk from climate change, the overexploitation of natural resources, and unplanned economic activities in SIDS.
It is crucial, therefore, for the challenges of climate hazards and biodiversity loss to be addressed holistically in policy, planning, and investments. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) offer great potential for interventions that can leverage SIDS’ natural assets to enhance climate resilience against hazards like sea-level rise and coastal erosion, and to improve food and water security.
NbS is an umbrella term to define a series of “green” approaches (Figure 1) that use nature and natural processes to deliver services, infrastructure, and integrative solutions. Given the financial constraints faced by most SIDS, NbS also offer cost-effective alternatives to engineered solutions, with lower maintenance costs, or can be combined with gray infrastructure in hybrid approaches.
Figure 1: Families of Nature-based Solutions
Source: World Bank, 2021.
Additionally, NbS offer the potential for community involvement through initiatives that address social inequality and contribute to job creation. It is estimated that the job creation potential per million US dollars of investment in NbS in developing countries can range between 275 to 625 jobs for afforestation and reforestation, and between 166 to 500 jobs for watershed-related activities.
The World Bank Global Program on Nature-based Solutions for Climate Resilience
The integration of NbS in delivering resilient infrastructure has become a part of key World Bank strategies in recent years. Between 2012 to 2023, the World Bank financed 30 projects across 24 SIDS, with a net commitment of $2.1 billion. Of this, $826.2 million was directed to project components containing NbS, including the rehabilitation or creation of mangroves (37%) and coral reef ecosystems (23%).
To deliver the needed support to SIDS, the World Bank has established the Global Program on Nature-based Solutions (GPNBS), as well as the NBS Opportunity Scan (NBSOS), which is a geospatial methodology that identifies priorities for potential NbS investments.
In Fiji, an NBSOS was conducted in the coastal zones of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. The analysis identified large areas of reefs, beaches, and mangroves where protection and restoration efforts could reduce the damage from coastal flooding by over $47 million annually by 2050.
Assessing Costs and Benefits of NbS for Decision-making and Project Implementation
Nature-based Solutions differ significantly from traditional gray infrastructure in terms of costs: typically, lower capital expenditure but more sustained operating expenditure. Quantifying the costs and benefits of NbS is crucial for securing funding and support. This includes socio-environmental benefits such as ecotourism potential or job creation, and avoided damage costs computed by comparing the NbS project intended benefits to a without-project scenario, or where an alternative solution is chosen. The methodology used by the GPNBS provides four steps for this assessment (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Four-step Process of Valuing Risk Reduction Benefits Using the Avoided Damages Method
Source: World Bank, 2023.
This process been extensively used to value the impact of NbS relevant for SIDS such as the benefits of coral reefs or mangroves, and for cost-benefit analyses of nature-based adaptation strategies. For example, the World Bank-funded Belize Marine Conservation and Climate Adaptation Project aimed to implement ecosystem-based marine conservation to strengthen the climate resilience of the Belize Barrier Reef. An ex-post incremental economic analysis estimated the benefit-cost ratio of ecosystem services, carbon storage, sequestration from mangroves, and beneficiaries’ future income to be between 1.08 and 4.34 within 10 years, and between 1.89 to 8.34 for a 20-year project horizon.
Implementation Challenges of NbS
Implementing NbS in SIDS involves a series of challenges, including:
- Low technical capacity and understanding on how NbS can be leveraged in SIDS-specific contexts, and the preference for gray or business-as-usual technologies across governments, engineering firms, and service providers.
- Poor data availability or proven track record of the successful implementation of NbS by SIDS.
- The prevalent structure of international climate finance, which often funds project implementation. NbS, however, require further consideration on how to pay for the operationalization and maintenance of projects in the medium to long term.
Addressing these knowledge and data gaps, therefore, is crucial for a wider use of NbS in SIDS. Programs like the GPNBS seek to address this gap, both at the local level and through promoting knowledge exchange between countries and in communities of practice. More details are available in the GPNBS report Assessing the Benefit and Costs of Nature-based Solutions for Climate Resilience: A Guideline for Project Developers.
Written by Chandrahas Choudhury based on chapter ‘Nature-based Solutions’ by Laura Jungman, Brenden Jongman, Boris Ton Van Zanten, Sally Lees Polk Judson, and Mikhail Andrew Fernandes (Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery [GFDRR] and the World Bank)
The ideas presented in this article aim to inspire adaptation action – they are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Global Center on Adaptation.
