Mapping deficit areas for adaptation planning: insights from flood protection ecosystem service in an Italian case study

Abstract

Climate change is reducing ecosystems’ ability to mitigate its impacts and help people adapt to it, calling for strengthening an integrated climate action while ensuring the protection of biodiversity and working to restore degraded ecosystems. One promising approach is to use ecosystem services (ES) to redesign and foster the resilience of cities and territories. However, in the planning domain, the integration of ES into plans and tools is still slow and partial. It seems thus necessary to systematically promote and communicate effective solutions for the better use and management of land resources. To this end, this study aims to produce outputs that adopt a ‘language’ that is understandable for planners, policy- and decision makers by adopting an ES-based approach. A three-step, cross-sectoral and multiscalar GIS-based methodology is developed to support decision-makers in identifying areas with a deficit of ES in response to flooding, i.e. where ES supply does not meet the demand. Moreover, it supports the integration of ecosystem-based actions intro adaptation planning for flood mitigation at the regional level.

Keywords: adaptation planning, ecosystem-based approach, flood protection, socio-ecological contexts