6 hours ago
1
When Cyclone Dana made landfall adjacent Bhitarkanika connected Odisha’s coast, the region’s mangroves softly provided a signifier of extortion that billions of rupees successful coastal infrastructure often conflict to deliver: reducing clime impacts portion strengthening ecosystems and livelihoods. Across India’s coastline, mangroves, seagrass meadows, and coral reefs are already helping communities accommodate to rising clime risks. Yet seawalls, groynes, and embankments proceed to predominate adaptation spending, adjacent though they tin beryllium costly to support and sometimes transportation risks elsewhere. Despite their proven benefits, these ecosystem-based interventions are seldom recognised arsenic Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), limiting their visibility successful adaptation readying and finance.
For millions surviving on India’s coastline, clime alteration is already a lived reality. From rising oversea levels crossed the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal to saline intrusion, intensifying cyclones and tempest surges, clime alteration is multiplying threats on India’s 11,000-kilometre coastline. These interacting hazards not lone reshape the ecologically fragile coastal scenery but besides straight upend the lives, livelihoods and homes of astir 250 cardinal people. In this context, EbA offers a promising strategy for reducing clime hazard portion sustaining the ecosystems that enactment fisheries, agriculture, and tourism.
India’s coastal adaptation scenery reveals a stark penchant for engineered measures specified arsenic seawalls, groynes, embankments, and tetrapods. This penchant is besides reflected successful nationalist spending. While coastal States spent ₹2,641 crore connected hard extortion measures implicit the past decade, the National Coastal Mission’s fund fell from ₹195 crore successful 2022-23 to ₹50 crore successful 2024-25. Although grey measures stay indispensable and effectual successful galore high-density municipality contexts, they are costly to support and tin displace underlying risks alternatively than resoluteness them. In Kerala, for example, hard armouring on eroding coastlines has protected circumstantial sites portion accelerating erosion and harm successful adjacent areas.
Untapped adaptation asset
EbA uses biodiversity and ecosystem services to assistance radical accommodate to clime change.
India’s coastline hosts a scope of ecosystems, including mangroves, seagrasses, coral reefs, and wetlands, that enactment arsenic earthy buffers against clime impacts. Research identifies India arsenic a planetary ‘hotspot’ for coastal EbA, with mangroves protecting much radical per hectare than astir immoderate different country. Yet this ecological shield remains an underutilised plus successful India’s clime resilience strategy.
The benefits of EbA are already disposable connected the ground. In the Sundarbans, for instance, implicit 18,000 women restored 4,600 hectares of mangroves, blunting the devastation of cyclones Amphan and Yaas. The restoration besides strengthened livelihoods done activities specified arsenic chromatic postulation and crab farming, highlighting EbA’s societal and economical co-benefits.
EbA remains peripheral to India’s adaptation agenda. Fragmented mandates, anemic monitoring, and a penchant for disposable infrastructure often permission ecosystem-based interventions buried wrong broader sectoral programmes alternatively than recognised arsenic adaptation successful their ain right.
The astir overlooked barrier, however, is the ambiguity surrounding the word EbA. The argumentation abstraction is crowded with overlapping concepts specified arsenic Nature-based Solutions (NbS), Ecosystem-based Coastal Adaptation (EbCA), Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR), and different ecosystem-centred approaches, creating uncertainty astir what qualifies arsenic EbA. Additionally, galore ecosystem-based interventions are implemented done broader development, conservation, oregon restoration programmes, with their adaptation benefits seldom assessed oregon recorded separately. As a result, galore coastal EbA interventions stay concealed wrong sectoral initiatives oregon generic argumentation categories, making India’s coastal EbA portfolio look overmuch weaker than it genuinely is.
Why classification matters
The Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats & Tangible Incomes programme illustrates the disconnect. It aims astatine restoring 540 quadrate kilometres of mangroves crossed 9 States. Although designed to support coastal communities from the impacts of clime change, it is chiefly framed arsenic a restoration programme.
Without wide designation and classification, galore EbA interventions stay fragmented crossed antithetic labels and schemes. Clear classification helps identify, monitor, and measure adaptation outcomes portion ensuring that the socio-economic benefits of EbA are decently reflected successful readying and finance. This matters adjacent much arsenic the Global Goal connected Adaptation has renewed attraction to however adaptation outcomes are measured and reported. Without wide ways of identifying and tracking EbA interventions, India risks undercounting immoderate of its astir effectual clime responses.
While this whitethorn look to beryllium a question of terminology, it carries existent argumentation consequences. For amended adaptation action, India indispensable determination from dispersed projects to a coherent strategy that embeds EbA wrong coastal readying and adaptation policy. The situation is nary longer whether ecosystem-based adaptation works but whether our argumentation frameworks are prepared to recognise, measure, and standard it. By operationalising EbA arsenic a halfway clime and improvement strategy, India tin reposition its earthy superior arsenic 1 of its astir resilient and equitable lines of defence.
Jui Gusani is simply a postgraduate from the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, and was formerly an intern astatine the Sustainable Futures Collaborative; Sony R. K. is an Associate Fellow astatine Sustainable Futures Collaborative
