Nature-based and community-led strategies offer effective, context-specific solutions that reduce climate risks, restore ecosystems, enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services, and support local livelihoods, enabling sustainable and equitable adaptation even in highly constrained environments such as drylands.
This session invites contributions that explore how nature-based and community-led approaches support disaster risk reduction, ecosystem restoration, and climate change adaptation across diverse ecological and socio-economic contexts, with a particular focus on research that:
- Assesses the effectiveness of these strategies in reducing risk and enhancing climate resilience
- Examines socio-ecological trade-offs and synergies by integrating ecological and social science perspectives within systems-based approaches
- Evaluates long-term resilience and restoration outcomes across varied ecological and socio-economic contexts, including arid and semi-arid landscapes
- Engages with Indigenous and local knowledge systems, emphasizing culturally grounded and community-driven solutions
- Investigates governance challenges, structural barriers, and enabling conditions, and explores inclusive frameworks that support equity, participation, and sustainability
- Investigates synergies and trade-offs between nature-based approaches and conventional measures
- Examines the effectiveness, resilience, and scalability of specific nature-based solution typologies (e.g., water harvesting, vegetation restoration, agroforestry)
- Examines innovative monitoring and assessment tools (e.g., citizen science, remote sensing, hydrological modelling, eDNA, AI) to evaluate, optimize, and scale nature-based and community-led strategies
This session is supported by the RISK-KAN Working Group on “Nature-Based and Community-Led Climate Risk Strategies.” Contributions from diverse regions are welcome, with a particular emphasis on early-career researchers and practitioners from underrepresented areas.
Orals: Fri, 8 May, 10:45–12:30 | Room 2.24
Nature-based interventions or solutions are considered as panacea to simultaneously address ecological and social challenges in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. They are diverse in type and scope and can be implemented at different scales, by different people (e.g. based on age, gender, other intersecting factors), for different purposes.
As with other community-focussed interventions, nature-based interventions are set and implemented in existing social settings with inherent power relationships that bear the risk to (systematically) exclude marginalized groups from participating in and benefiting from these interventions. Or they exacerbate already existing inequalities and harmful social and gender norms that further limit marginalized groups from already excluded positions within societies. As such, while providing improvements for nature and ecosystems, they may not automatically provide social or economic benefits for vulnerable livelihoods and marginalized groups despite being labelled to offer solutions that are equitable. The unfolding of multiple benefits can be substantially limited and hindered by existing social context, including inherent power dynamics and harmful social and gender norms.
Consequently, the people most impacted by climate change, ecosystem and biodiversity degradation and most in need of impactful adaptation and risk reduction measures are at risk of not benefiting from nature-based climate solutions. There is need to explicitly understand the unique challenges as well as the unique opportunities and entry points available to ensure nature-based interventions benefit marginalized groups.
The Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance is a multi-sectoral partnership focused on enhancing resilience to climate hazards in both rural and urban communities. By implementing solutions, promoting good practice, influencing policy and facilitating systemic change, we aim to ensure that all communities facing climate hazards are able to thrive.
Nature-based interventions play a key role in adaptation and resilience building to climate hazards. To ensure quality interventions that effectively reach marginalized groups and provide them with long term multiple and sustainable benefits, we are preparing a guidance brief to look at the opportunities and challenges with integrating gender equality and social inclusion in nature-based adaptation and resilience thinking.
Questions the brief wants to address:
- What does equality, inclusivity, and accessibility mean for nature-based interventions?
- How equitable, inclusive and accessible are diverse nature-based interventions (e.g. reforestation, watershed management)?
- Which type of interventions are more suitable for different marginalized groups?
- What are the opportunities/recommendations to make nature-based interventions for adaptation and disaster risk reduction more equal, inclusive, and accessible?
With the proposed presentation we want to draw attention to the less obvious challenges of nature-based approaches on the livelihood side from a gender equality and social inclusion perspective and the risk of benefits not being accessible to marginalized groups, present preliminary findings from our assessment of nature-based interventions that Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance partners are supporting, and share some ideas and examples of nature-based interventions that can specifically target women, elderly or people with disabilities and better meet the unique challenges and opportunities that they face.
How to cite: Gossrau, F. and Livesey, A.: Barriers and Solutions for Gender Equality and Social Inclusion in Nature-based Adaptation and Resilience Interventions, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-19659, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-19659, 2026.
Community-led solutions are a vital part of the toolkit for climate change resilience and disaster risk mitigation. Since 2013, AGU Thriving Earth Exchange has empowered communities to co-create impactful projects that use science to address their pressing environmental challenges. Thriving Earth Exchange has launched nearly 400 projects in 17 countries and trained 2,000 people in community engaged science.
When scientific approaches are community-led, they are grounded in that community's values and socio-ecological systems. Questions, methods, and outputs are tailored to meet not only the local community's needs but also their ethical and cultural frameworks. Results can therefore have deep and lasting impacts. However, this process can be slower and more iterative than many scientists, funders and institutions expect. Bespoke and personalized approaches also create challenges for scaling. Additionally, it requires scientists to give up a certain amount of control and power. If a community determines they do not want to pursue a particular pathway or approach, researchers must be ready to accept that adjustment.
This talk will share case studies, lessons learned and findings from recent Thriving Earth Exchange projects in the United States of America and Latin America. A brief history of how Thriving Earth Exchange has approached and adapted their framework will provide insights into ways that institutions can balance scaling with high-touch personalized approaches. Case studies will include projects with Indigenous communities on traditional ecological knowledge, nature-based solutions to climate and disaster management, and approaches that invest in local livelihoods. Analysis of Thriving Earth Exchange's portfolio alongside qualitative and contextualized examples will highlight patterns, tensions, tradeoffs, and potential paths forward.
How to cite: Crocker, L. and Shores, A.: Meeting the Challenge Together: Lessons from a Decade of Community-Led Science for Climate Resilience, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-5986, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-5986, 2026.
Robust evaluation of climate change adaptation is essential for tracking progress and informing decision-making, yet existing assessment methods often overlook local priorities, social outcomes, and contextual complexity. We introduce a coproduced, quantitative framework for evaluating adaptation effectiveness that explicitly incorporates local knowledge, values, and success criteria. The approach is applied to locally led adaptation to flood risk in Tamale, Ghana, providing one of the first quantitative evaluations of this rapidly expanding adaptation approach.
The assessment draws on a multi-year participatory process combining community ranking exercises, focus group discussions, and household surveys to evaluate 11 locally led adaptation interventions. Effectiveness was measured against criteria identified by local people, capturing dimensions frequently absent from conventional technical assessments, including diverse risk-reduction pathways, equity considerations, long-term sustainability, and social and environmental co-benefits. Community-based and behavioural measures - such as collective action and tree planting - were consistently rated as more effective than predominantly structural or technical interventions.
By embedding the coproduced assessment results within a flood risk modelling framework, we find that locally led adaptation interventions can substantially reduce overall flood risk but struggle to address existing social inequalities. The findings demonstrate how coproduction can broaden and strengthen adaptation assessment whilst also revealing the practical challenges of fully realising locally led adaptation principles in implementation.
How to cite: Howard, B., Awuni, C., Agyei-Mensah, S., Audia, C., Berkhout, F., Bryant, L., Cavanaugh, A., Curran, A., Macleod, S., Manteaw, R., Mitchell, P., Ockelford, A., Pratt, V., Sadiq Mohammed, A., Tetteh, J., and Buytaert, W.: Coproduced assessments of climate change adaptation to flood risk reveal equity challenges in locally led approaches , EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-5482, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-5482, 2026.
Nature-based solutions (NbS) are widely promoted to enhance water security. However, their implementation can generate trade-offs that, if overlooked, risk undermining long-term sustainability and equity. As NbS are scaled up, decision-makers require approaches that can anticipate not only benefits, but also disbenefits, who bears them, and how coupled socio-environmental systems respond to interventions over time. Without such perspectives, NbS may achieve short-term gains while failing to function effectively or equitably in the long run.
Here, we use a participatory systems modelling approach to examine NbS planning in the water supply region of Lima, Peru (the rural-urban CHIRILUMA system), where ecosystem conservation and ancestral infiltration-enhancement infrastructure are being implemented through initiatives such as the national Mechanism of Reward for Ecosystem Services (MRSE). The analysis reveals synergies and tensions between ecological, economic, and social objectives—such as between ecosystem health and rural livelihoods—and shows how isolated responses to these tensions can trigger feedbacks that undermine NbS performance.
We extend the conceptual systems analysis through semi-quantitative simulations that compare NbS implementation strategies. These simulations enable assessment of how trade-offs and feedbacks evolve over short- and long-term horizons, how benefits and disbenefits are distributed, and when NbS interventions risk losing effectiveness or reinforcing inequities. Framing these outcomes as potential system failures allows us to identify leverage points to manage trade-offs, including the alignment of local practices with institutional arrangements and the strengthening of mechanisms for long-term maintenance and benefit sharing.
Overall, the study demonstrates how systems-based approaches can support NbS planning that anticipates system responses, reduces the risk of system failures, and promotes more robust and equitable water management in complex, high-risk settings.
How to cite: Gimeno Jésus, C., Castro Salvador, S., Cuadros-Adriazola, J., Howard, B., Perez, K., Bonnesoeur, V., Mijic, A., and Buytaert, W.: Anticipating potential system failures in designing equitable and sustainable NbS, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-19241, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-19241, 2026.
Mediterranean Agro-silvo-pastoral Ecosystems (MAEs) are increasingly threatened by climate-related hazards such as droughts, heatwaves, water scarcity, soil degradation and tree mortality. The DRYAD project of Mission Adaptation to Climate Change initiative, addresses these challenges by demonstrating, replicating and upscaling climate-resilient Nature-based Solutions (NbS). In DRYAD, various innovative tools are leveraged to support NbS-implementation; these include real-time monitoring with LoRaWAN sensors, development of web-based geospatial database management system (AgroAquae) handling real-time data (field and remote sensing), coupling of SCOPE-STEMMUS-MODFLOW6 models for analyzing plant-soil-groundwater dynamics and for assessment of tree mortality, machine-learning to scale NbS from local to regional scale, and finally development of user-friendly DSS implemented not only in AgroAquae, but also on cell-phone apps, facilitating the NbS use by stakeholders.
The NbS addressed in DRYAD fall in three categories, water-related, soil-related and biodiversity-related. One, water-related NbS, focusing on implementation of artificial ponds in Mediterranean oak woodland called Dehesa in Spain and Montado in Portugal, is presented hereafter. Dehesa-Montado is the most extensive MAE in Europe, which provides multiple socio-economic usages, with the most important livestock-farming for high quality meat production, which however requires large amount of continuously supplied water. To address that demand, farmers excavate ponds. Unfortunately, the majority of such artificial ponds dry up during droughts, while only those hydraulically linked to groundwater (further referred to as groundwater dependent ponds, GDPs) maintain water. Besides, majority of artificial ponds are not fenced, so eutrophication from livestock-manure, reduces water quality. As only GDPs can guarantee continuous fresh-water supply, the proposed methodology of artificial pond implementation, involves four objectives/steps:
1) Identification of optimal location of GDPs (two sub-steps): i) multi-year comparative analysis (dry versus wet seasons) of very high-resolution satellite images, to locate existing GDPs; ii) use of machine-learning to define new GDP locations at the regional scale using: the existing GDPs as primary training points, any in-situ information about water table depth and if needed, additional data from satellite image-processing, geo-radar survey and field-augering.
2) Assessment of optimal size, excavation depth and sustainability of GDPs; small scale MODFLOW6 models will be set up in selected, representative areas to define: i) size of GDPs, because larger ponds have larger evaporation loses; ii) excavation depth, because only depth larger than the lowest, multi-year water table position, guarantees continuous pond water presence; and iii) pond sustainability, to make sure that combined water use by livestock and environmental losses are balanced by yearly, surface and groundwater inflow.
3) Off-pond livestock watering system designed by fencing ponds to preserve good quality of water and by LoRaWAN-based automated control of water-divergence outside fencing to troughs.
4) Minimizing water evaporation by windbreaks, such as tree planting at least at the most frequent wind direction side and by solar shade structures, which can also provide power for water-divergence outside pond-fencing.
The proposed NbS is being implemented in the Alentejo (Portugal) and will be replicated in the Sardón area (Spain).
Acknowledgments: This research has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No:101156076
How to cite: Lubczynski, M., Frances, A., Lado, M., Daoud, M., Mendes, M.-P., Pisani, B., and Samper, J.: Implementation of artificial, groundwater-dependent ponds in Mediterranean Agro-silvo-pastoral Ecosystems as a nature-based solution - DRYAD EU project, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-13993, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-13993, 2026.
Climate change is intensifying flood risk globally, with social and socio-economic vulnerabilities shaping their impacts, leading to differential outcomes and risk reduction needs and priorities, exacerbating existing inequalities and undermining resilience gains. Ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (eco-DRR) presents a nature-based pathway to reduce risk holistically, addressing hazard, exposure, and vulnerability dimensions. However, evidence remains uneven regarding how and under what conditions eco-DRR reduces underlying vulnerability beyond physical hazard risk reduction.
This presentation reports findings from a qualitative, multi-country study examining how eco-DRR interventions interact with drivers of vulnerability to flood hazards across Sierra Leone, Haiti, Colombia, Honduras, India, Nepal, and Tajikistan. Data were generated through focus group discussions with implementing teams and key informant interviews with eco-DRR specialists. We conducted thematic analysis guided by the Pressure and Release (PAR) model and Bohle’s “double structure” of vulnerability to assess (i) vulnerability drivers; (ii) the mechanisms through which eco-DRR addresses (or fails to address) these drivers in practice; and (iii) enabling conditions and constraints for sustained, equitable resilience outcomes.
Findings suggest that eco-DRR can contribute to reductions in social and socio-economic vulnerability through multiple pathways, including livelihood diversification and income stability, strengthening of social cohesion and collective action, enhanced risk awareness and local capacities, and increased community stewardship of ecosystems. Crucially, outcomes are uneven and contingent upon local power dynamics and differential access to resources (such as land, labour, time, and finance) based on structural inequalities. Governance-related barriers such as insecure tenure, limited institutional capacity, and weak service delivery can constrain longer-term vulnerability reduction when eco-DRR is implemented as a standalone intervention.
We argue that eco-DRR more meaningfully, comprehensively, and sustainably reduces risk when designed and implemented with an understanding of the contextual drivers and impacts of social and socio-economic vulnerabilities as well as of the physical hazard, and is complemented by measures targeting these structural drivers of vulnerability.
How to cite: Sneddon, A., Makev, T., and Pollard, A.: Ecosystem-based Flood Risk Reduction: Pathways to Vulnerability Reduction, Equity, and Resilience, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-19150, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-19150, 2026.
Climate dynamics across Europe are introducing novel threats, including compound and cascading hydrological hazards that endanger agriculture, infrastructure, and ecosystems. Over the last two decades, the Balkan countries have frequently been situated in the "red zone" of devastating drought events. Currently, Serbia ranks as the most vulnerable European country regarding climate change impacts. This is particularly critical for the Vojvodina region, one of the major European producers of maize, soybean, and other high-value crops. While shifts in Balkan climate types are scientifically proven, their “real-world" impacts often remain obscured. The EU-funded Twinning Green Deal SONATA project ”Monitoring of nature infrastructure - Skill acquisition for Nature-based Solutions” focuses on the allocation, planning, and implementation of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) (Nikolić-Lugonja et al, 2026). A primary outcome is the precise mapping of nature infrastructure to establish a baseline of current habitats. This foundation allows for the observation of ecological shifts over coming decades and provides a cornerstone for conservationists, ecologists, and industry stakeholders to pursue sustainable agriculture and biodiversity maintenance. To facilitate strategic planning, SONATA is developing a geospatial tool designed to optimize NbS placement, explore soil health through eDNA, including the regional open access dataset (Marković et al, 2026). The project features two distinct Case Study Areas: CSA1 focuses on pollination services to enhance crop yields; CSA2 targets water retention to mitigate drought impacts on wetlands and surrounding agricultural lands. A central vertical pillar of the CSA2 is a micro-scale experiment in a degraded natural depression near Zimonić (community of Kanjiža), specifically focusing on "soda pans"—shallow, ephemeral lakes with unique chemical properties. Throughout the 20th century, the Danube-Tisa-Danube drainage system together with its operations altered the semi-natural hydrological cycle to favor agriculture, leading to the disappearance of these pans. Combined with recent desertification and intensive irrigation, this has caused a dramatic drop in groundwater levels in the area. During the first year, field investigations included LiDAR scanning which was carried out to produce a precise Digital Elevation Model and infiltration experiments were conducted to set up a conceptual water balance model. Preliminary calculations indicate that a simple intervention—a small wooden gate to raise water levels by 30 cm—could trap an additional >130 m3 of water within the Zimonić pilot site. This would bring the total volume of the revitalized ephemeral lake to approximately 290 m3, allowing the depression to remain wet until mid July under average summer conditions (now it dries out by mid May) thereby supporting soil moisture during vegetation and local biodiversity. In collaboration with the local community and protected area managers, SONATA utilizes the Living Lab concept to ensure that NbS planning aligns with local priorities such as sustainable agriculture and water management. This collaborative approach fosters dialogue with the Regional Water Management Agency (Vode Vojvodine) to provide a "proof of concept" for future upscaling NbS management actions.
This work was supported by the SONATA Twinning project funded from the European Union’s Horizon Europe program under Widening participation and spreading excellence action (GA no. 101159546)
How to cite: Kireeva, M., Radulovic, M., Sandin, L., Kohler, B., Bargmann, T., Ivosevic, B., Pendic, J., Buden, M., Ceprnic, A., and Nikolic Lugonja, T.: Revitalizing wet meadows in Northern Vojvodina to mitigate droughts and heat stress, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-16849, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-16849, 2026.
Climate change exacerbates exposure to extreme weather, magnifies intersecting vulnerabilities, and multiplies the risks faced by urban populations worldwide. Nowhere is this more pressing than in informal settlements, where cascading and compound risks threaten the lives of over one billion people globally (UN-Habitat, 2025). In these contexts, climate hazards—floods, landslides, heatwaves—interact with precarious housing, infrastructural deficits, and socio-economic marginalization, producing unlivable conditions. Addressing these challenges requires integrated strategies that move beyond technocratic assessments of hazard exposure and toward participatory, systemic approaches that combine community knowledge, risk governance, and adaptive design.
This talk presents the Planos Comunitários de Redução de Riscos e Adaptação Climática (PCRAs, Community Plans for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Adaptation), a pioneering initiative of Brazil’s Secretaria Nacional de Periferias (National Secretariat for Urban Peripheries) within the Brazilian Ministry of Cities. Currently being piloted in twelve urban peripheries across the country, the PCRA seeks to generate place-based and community-driven strategies for disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation. Our contribution focuses on the plan developed in Jardim Colombo, São Paulo, where local residents, civil society organizations, and public authorities co-produce knowledge and solutions, and on a pilot in a neighboring community, Jardim São Remo, in collaboration with scholars and students from the University of São Paulo.
Methodologically, we employ a systemic risk matrix that hierarchizes hazards and vulnerabilities, guiding decision-making and the co-selection of NBS interventions. This framework integrates scientific risk assessments with community-based knowledge, generating actionable maps and strategies that serve as both technical planning instruments and mechanisms for community empowerment. By foregrounding systemic risk and NBS in the context of informal settlements, the PCRAs also contribute to national and global debates on equitable adaptation pathways.
The work systematised data on seven previously identified risk categories: ground subsidence and mass movements associated with inadequate wastewater disposal and mud intrusion; unhealthy urban configurations marked by poor ventilation and air circulation, favouring humidity retention and respiratory health risks; severe accessibility constraints due to narrow alleys and stairways lacking adequate infrastructure; inadequate sanitation and drainage systems compromising environmental quality and public health; vulnerability to surface runoff, flash flooding, and inundation during intense rainfall events; improper solid waste disposal, contributing to soil, water, and air contamination, drainage obstruction, flood risk, and slope instability; and exposure to extreme heat, adversely affecting health and well-being. In response to this multi-risk context, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are being proposed as a key strategy for climate risk mitigation in informal settlements, simultaneously addressing the technical challenges identified through the prior risk matrix mapping and the needs and priorities articulated by the local community through participatory workshops.
In a context where climate denialism and exclusionary governance have hindered progress, the current Brazilian turn toward participatory policymaking provides an important institutional opening. The PCRAs demonstrates how collaborations between state institutions and peripheral communities can generate innovative and scalable responses to climate risks. More broadly, it contributes to international debates on systemic, community-driven risk governance, underscoring the importance of inclusive adaptation strategies for enhancing the resilience of urban peripheries.
How to cite: Pereira Guimaraes, M., Galo Santos, S., Pereira, R., Tavares Pereira, C., Pereira Sato, D., Sandre, A., Moura Campos, R., Ayumi Sato, C., Pizarro, E., Duarte, D., and Noronha Dutra Ribeiro, F.: From Exposure to Resilience: Community-Based Multi-Risk Mapping and Nature-Based Solutions in Brazil’s Urban Peripheries, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-20961, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-20961, 2026.
Land restoration projects are increasingly implemented across Africa and other regions of the world to combat land degradation, and contribute to climate change mitigation efforts by storing anthropogenic carbon emissions in vegetation. However, increases in vegetation cover can directly impact local climate by altering surface properties, the exchange of water and energy between the Earth’s surface and atmosphere, and ultimatly cloud formation and precipitation. Although the influence of vegetation on the local climate is relatively well studied, it remains difficult to predict the local climate impacts of restoration. In West Africa, satellite observations have shown cloud enhancement over larger protected areas. However, even though different land restoration practices (e.g. farmer-managed natural regeneration, agroforestry or reforestation) result in different spatial patterns of vegetation, it remains unclear how these patterns affect cloud formation in this region.
To this end, we investigated how the extent and spatial arrangement of land restoration (in this case reforestation) influence cloud formation using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF-ARW v4.1.4) mesoscale atmospheric model. We focused on the transnational W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) protected area complex in West Africa, characterized by a strong contrast between forested and grassland areas, and observational evidence for cloud enhancement over the forested region. We first conducted a sensitivity analysis to identify the key mechanisms driving cloud formation over forested surfaces. Next, we simulated 27 land restoration scenarios that vary in forest cover (low: 21%, intermediate: 43%, and high: 85%) and in the degree of spatial clustering, in addition to two baseline scenarios (0% and 100% forest cover).
Our results show that a fully forested landscape increases afternoon average cloud cover (8.4%) compared to a grassland-only scenario (3.2%) (Ruijsch et al., 2025). However, the highest afternoon cloud cover (21.1%) occurs for scenarios with intermediate forest cover and strong spatial clustering, driven by enhanced mesoscale circulations. These findings suggest that while forests themselves promote cloud formation in this case study, larger-scale heterogeneity (i.e. a combination of forest and grassland patches) results in particularly strong cloud enhancement. Because clouds play an important role in the Earth’s water and energy balance, this study provides new insights into how the design of land restoration projects impact their local climate benefits.
References:
Ruijsch, J., Teuling, A.J., Taylor, C.M., Steeneveld, G.J., & Hutjes, R.W.A. (2026). Clustered land restoration projects increase cloud formation in West African drylands. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres,131,e2025JD044393.
How to cite: Ruijsch, J., Teuling, A. J., Taylor, C. M., Steeneveld, G.-J., and Hutjes, R. W. A.: Clustered land restoration projects increase cloud formation in West African drylands, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-5073, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-5073, 2026.
Context
Australia's 2019-2020 megafires exposed fundamental challenges in conventional disaster management approaches. Fire to Flourish (2022-2025) was an action research program working with affected communities to address systemic barriers preventing communities from leading their own resilience efforts: top-down governance that excludes local decision-making, chronic under-investment in regional systems, and structural disadvantages that compound disaster impacts. The five-year program tested whether community-led approaches could enable transformative resilience by addressing root causes of vulnerability and building on community strengths.
What we did
Fire to Flourish partnered with over 50 communities in four regional local government areas through locally embedded community teams. Participatory action research and co-design positioned communities as transdisciplinary partners. Across more than 20 community-led processes, communities co-designed resilience priorities, projects, and participatory governance, including decision-making structures, culturally safe and trauma-informed ways of working, and accessible communication and support.
Community-led participatory grantmaking shifted decision power directly to community members, enabling them to set priorities and allocate over $10 million (AUD) (€5.8 million) in flexible funding to community-led projects according to their needs. The program deliberately employed and remunerated community members, recognising local knowledge as essential expertise and acknowledging consultation fatigue.
Central to the approach was foregrounding Indigenous knowledge and ways of being through the Australian Aboriginal concept of Caring for Country, a holistic and relational practice encompassing care for lands, waters, people, culture and community. Caring for Country as a knowledge system and governance practice shares principles of Indigenous resource management traditions globally. Positioning people as inseparable from Country, it integrates ecological stewardship and human wellbeing through practices such as cultural burning that have guided Aboriginal land management for millennia. Within Fire to Flourish, Caring for Country guided shared values and governance principles, providing a practical pathway for Aboriginal leadership and cultural protocols to shape co-design and participatory decision-making.
Community Outcomes
The participatory processes revealed significant existing community strengths, including deep local knowledge and the capacity to self-organise and coordinate. They strengthened relationships, created new networks, and enhanced organisational capabilities. Caring for Country emerged as important to collective decision-making across both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal participants. As one of the community-identified priorities, it was reflected in a significant subset of the more than 200 community-led projects funded, including Aboriginal ranger programmes, cultural burning initiatives, emergency preparedness and social infrastructure.
What we learnt
Community-led disaster resilience requires fundamental systems change across three interconnected areas. First, governance structures must shift from exclusionary, top-down models to collaborative frameworks enabling genuine community decision-making power. Second, place-based approaches tailored to local context are essential; implementation must be co-designed with communities, and include culturally grounded governance and accessible processes. Third, local knowledge and lived experience constitute critical expertise systematically missing from disaster response, resilience and climate adaptation. Indigenous knowledge and governance systems, such as Caring for Country, offer proven, practice-based approaches for integrating ecological stewardship and social wellbeing before and after disasters. Enabling community-led resilience requires long-term, flexible funding responsive to community needs, sustained presence to build trust, partnerships and appropriate support structures, whilst maintaining community ownership.
How to cite: Paschen, J.-A., Evans, G., Keating, A., and Rogers, B.: Community-Led Disaster Resilience: Integrating Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Participatory Governance in Fire and Flood-Affected Australian Communities, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-8811, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-8811, 2026.
Posters on site: Fri, 8 May, 14:00–15:45 | Hall X3
Rising anthropogenic disturbances to forests and wetlands are intensifying hydrometeorological extremes under climate change, elevating socio-economic and environmental risks, particularly in developing regions with limited resilience. Floods, accounting for nearly 40% of global disasters, are highly sensitive to land-use change and shifts in climate regimes, with their frequency projected to double by 2030. The Brahmaputra River catchment in the Himalayan region exemplifies this growing crisis, which is highly vulnerable to prolonged and recurrent flooding, causing severe disruptions for millions of people. Over the last two decades, the basin has experienced rapid urbanization (~70%), notable forest loss (~3%), and drastic wetland decline (~80%). Using Cellular Automata-based LULC projections, this study finds an additional 3% decline in forest cover by 2050 may further exacerbate regional flood hazards. Although recent studies highlight the role of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in urban flood management, there remains limited understanding of integrated multi-NbS strategies in large river basins. This study evaluates the restoration of forest and wetland cover to 2000-year levels using a coupled hydrological-hydrodynamic modeling framework. Future climate impacts were assessed using multi-criteria-evaluated, downscaled, and bias-corrected GCM projections. While GCM-based simulations improve understanding of NbS performance under extreme conditions, the socio-economic implications of restoring ecosystems remain insufficiently explored.
In the present study, the peak streamflow is projected to increase by 5-6% in upstream sub-basins and by 2-3% downstream under the worst-case LULC-2050 scenario. Forest restoration beyond 85% cover in any sub-basin showed diminishing hydrological benefits, whereas moderate restoration in areas with less than 70% forest cover was more effective. Similarly, natural or unmanaged wetlands were observed to be insufficient for flood mitigation due to early monsoon saturation. Implementing a hydro-ecological-based wetland management strategy by draining partial storage before storm events significantly enhanced the wetland retention capacity and provided greater peak-flow reduction than forest restoration alone. Combined restoration measures lowered the peak flows below historical (1991–2020) levels at major cities of the region, i.e., Dhubri (3%), Tezpur (2.7%), Guwahati (2.3%), and Dibrugarh (1.5%). Return-period analysis revealed that a 25-year flood at Dhubri could shift to a 60-year event with integrated restoration but worsen to a 10-year event by 2050 without wetland management. Flood exposure in built-up and agricultural areas is expected to rise by 3.5% and 8%, respectively. However, restoration could lower these exposures by about 2% and 5%, which could protect 1.6 million people. Overall, the findings demonstrate that targeted ecosystem restoration and sustainable hydro-ecological management can substantially enhance flood resilience in large river basins and serve as effective NbS for climate change adaptation.
How to cite: Gupta, R. and Chembolu, V.: Assessing Hydro-ecological Restoration for Climate-resilient Flood Management in Large River Basins under growing Anthropogenic Pressures, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-404, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-404, 2026.
Small islands, characterized by their geographic isolation and resource constraints, are highly vulnerable socio-ecological systems (SES) facing the dual threats of Sea-Level Rise (SLR) and extreme weather events. As climate change intensifies, integrating Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) with Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) becomes critical for enhancing island resilience. However, conventional approaches often lack the localized data necessary to inform nature-based and community-led strategies. This study addresses this gap by establishing a localized climate resilience assessment framework using the Matsu Archipelago (Lienchiang County, Taiwan) as an empirical case. Utilizing ArcGIS-based overlay analysis, we assessed the interplay between physical hazards and socio-economic vulnerabilities across three core dimensions: (1) the exposure of embayment settlements to SLR and flood hazards; (2) the protective capacity of critical infrastructure; and (3) the adaptive readiness of the tourism industry, a key livelihood dependent on local ecosystem services.
Results indicate that by 2100, 433 buildings and 12 critical infrastructure sites will face direct risks from SLR and flooding. Crucially, the impact extends to the island's economic lifeline, affecting approximately 85 tourism-related facilities and specifically endangering an estimated 29 vulnerable residents. This research contributes to the session by demonstrating how high-resolution spatial analysis can serve as an enabling condition for implementation and scaling of adaptation strategies. By visualizing the cascading impacts on livelihoods and infrastructure, this framework provides a scientific basis for prioritizing Nature-based Solutions (NbS) over rigid engineering, and empowers local communities with the spatial knowledge needed for bottom-up resilience planning and social learning in data-scarce island contexts.
How to cite: Li, C.-H. and Hung, C.-T.: Integrating Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Adaptation in Island Socio-Ecological Systems: A Spatial Resilience Assessment of the Matsu Archipelago, Taiwan, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-3705, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-3705, 2026.
Climate change is intensifying risks across interconnected ecological and social systems, yet in many Asian watershed towns, urbanization patterns continue to contradict resilience principles. This study examines the "Development-Risk Paradox"—a phenomenon where intensive development coincides with high environmental hazards—using Wufeng District in the Wu River watershed (Central Taiwan) as an empirical case of a stressed Socio-Ecological System (SES). By integrating literature review, field surveys, and ArcGIS-based spatial analysis (overlaying IPCC AR6 risk metrics, land use data, and housing prices), we investigated the trade-offs between economic expansion and ecological security.
The results reveal three critical dimensions of vulnerability: (1) Spatial Maladaptation: Densely populated settlements significantly overlap with high-hazard zones (flood, landslide, and fault lines), indicating that urban encroachment is expanding into, rather than retreating from, risk areas. (2) Loss of Nature-Based Buffers: The rapid conversion of agricultural land—which traditionally served as a natural buffer—into impervious residential and industrial surfaces has intensified surface runoff and deteriorated air quality (PM2.5), creating cascading ecosystem disservices. (3) Perverse Economic Incentives: Contrary to risk perception theories, property values in high-risk zones have risen due to industrial-driven speculation. This demonstrates a positive correlation between land use intensity and environmental risk. This study contributes to the session by highlighting a critical governance challenge: the prevailing "growth-first" logic acts as a structural barrier to implementing Nature-based Solutions (NbS). We argue that without addressing these underlying socio-economic drivers and land-market dynamics, community-led adaptation and ecological restoration efforts will remain marginalized in the face of developmental pressure.
How to cite: Hung, C.-T., Li, C.-H., and Shih, D.-S.: The Development-Risk Paradox in Watershed Urbanism: Structural Barriers to Nature-Based Resilience in Rural Taiwan, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-3712, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-3712, 2026.
Coastal regions are increasingly confronted with compounded risks driven by sea-level rise, extreme wave conditions, and climate-induced hydrological change. Many conventional coastal protection strategies in East Asia have relied heavily on hard engineering structures; however, these approaches face growing challenges under non-stationary climate conditions, rising maintenance burdens, and the redistribution of risk across spatial and social boundaries. In recent years, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) and community-led adaptation approaches have been proposed as alternative pathways for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA), yet empirical comparisons across different governance and protection logics remain limited.
This study examines the Yilan coast in northeastern Taiwan as an in-depth case study from a socio-ecological systems perspective. The Yilan coastal zone is exposed to interacting hazards, including typhoon-driven storm surges, extreme wave action, riverine flooding, and long-term sea-level rise. Unlike many intensively engineered coastlines in the region, Yilan retains wetlands, sandbars, river-mouth systems, and coastal agricultural settlements, allowing different coastal protection strategies to be examined within a shared environmental and institutional setting.
Based on long-term field observations, stakeholder interviews, and analysis of coastal planning and policy documents, this research compares three coastal protection logics: (1) engineering-dominated structural defenses, (2) hybrid approaches integrating selective engineering with natural buffering systems, and (3) community-led NbS embedded in local governance and land-use adaptation practices. The comparison focuses on adaptability under climate uncertainty, maintenance demands, social acceptance, and long-term risk reduction performance.
The results indicate that community-led NbS provide advantages over engineering-dominated and institution-led approaches by reducing exposure while sustaining ecological functions and enabling continuous adaptive learning. In Yilan, community participation strengthens stewardship of coastal landscapes, supports locally grounded monitoring practices, and allows incremental adjustment to evolving climate risks rather than reliance on static structural resistance.
By explicitly comparing coastal protection paradigms within a single socio-ecological system, this study contributes to the ITS4.11 and NH13.9 sessions by framing NbS as governance processes shaped by community agency rather than solely technical interventions. The findings offer transferable insights for coastal regions seeking resilient, community-led adaptation pathways under accelerating climate change.
How to cite: Chuang, M.-H. and Liu, C.-F.: Community-led Nature-based Coastal Protection for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation: A Comparative Socio-Ecological Perspective from the Yilan Coast, Taiwan, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-4491, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-4491, 2026.
Nature-based Solutions offers pragmatic pathways to restorations of land, water, and biodiversity, especially in the protected areas and open land systems that have been degraded due to multiple factors ranging from population pressure, urbanization, or climate change. This is especially of great importance to regions that have faced degradation to desertification and aridity conditions like Arid and Semi-Arid landscapes (ASALs) and protected areas that host multiple biodiversity ecosystems. Here, we conduct a risk assessment of the impact of mean climate shift and extremes across Kenya’s protected areas, like game reserves, National parks, community conservancies, and ranches. Using a range of observational products sourced from the Kenya Meteorological Department (ENACTs) witha timescale ranging from 1980 to 2020 and at a high spatial grid resolution of 4km, we conduct a study to evaluate the long-term trends and estimate the impact of extreme events relevant to ecosystem functionalities. Our findings demonstrate that protected regions across the landscape experience peak rainfall during the March to May season, resulting in the restoration of ecological functionality after long dry periods of January and February. Conversely, the mean temperature exhibits heterogeneity in spatial distribution, with lows being experienced during June to July and highs being observed during the month of January/February. Rainfall trends across the protected landscape reveal equally spatial heterogeneity at ~ - 19 to + 28 mm yr-1 whereas warming trends exhibit widespread positive tendencies in both maximum and minimum temperature (up to ~0.09 °C yr⁻¹ for Tmax and ~0.15 °C yr⁻¹ for Tmin). Considering the impact of extreme events in the wildlife protected regions, most parks show an increase in the days of consecutive dryness (CDD) of up to ~81 days in national reserves and pronounced thermal contrasts across the forest reserves due to the cooler refugia. The highest warming and dry-spell burden was noted across the protected regions in northeastern areas, which are mainly characterized by ASAL climate. The observed impact of climate across the protected areas calls for diagnostics into NbS prioritization,s including water provision, restoration,n and drought buffering in high-risk ASAL conservancies; protection/restoration of forested ecosystems and conservancies, and integration of extreme-event monitoring and early-warning into conservancy governance to sustain land–water–biodiversity restoration under accelerating warming.
How to cite: Ayugi, B. O. and Demory, M.-E.: Climate Risk Diagnostics Across Kenya’s Protected Areas to Prioritize Nature-Based Restoration Pathways in Arid and Semi-Arid Landscapes, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-10067, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-10067, 2026.
Urban parks and green spaces are essential urban infrastructure that mitigate climate risks such as heatwaves and heavy rainfall while supporting citizens’ physical and mental well-being. However, in high-density urban areas, land-use constraints restrict the provision of large-scale parks, leading to persistent inequalities in park accessibility. Evaluating policy interventions that address these spatial inequities has become increasingly important in the context of climate adaptation and environmental justice.
This study evaluates the effectiveness of a citizen-participatory green space policy—the Pocket Garden initiative—as a complementary strategy for enhancing park equity in areas with relatively low park accessibility. The policy supports residents in identifying underutilized urban spaces and actively participating in the creation and management of small-scale green spaces, providing an alternative form of green infrastructure in areas where new park development is limited.
A GIS-based network accessibility analysis was conducted using differentiated walking-time thresholds by park type: a 10-minute walking distance for neighborhood parks and arboretums, and a 5-minute walking distance for small parks such as children’s parks. The results show that areas benefiting from park services account for 70.6% of the city within the 10-minute threshold and 55.7% within the 5-minute threshold. The effects of Pocket Gardens were then examined in areas with relatively limited park access, indicating that these small-scale interventions help supplement local green space availability and mitigate accessibility gaps at the neighborhood level.
While Pocket Gardens cannot replace large urban parks in terms of scale or recreational capacity, the analysis shows that they play an important role in mitigating accessibility gaps in areas with limited park provision. Some Pocket Gardens identified and implemented by citizens were located within existing park service catchments, indicating that not all interventions directly target park-deprived areas. Nevertheless, these gardens contribute to strengthening local green space provision and addressing micro-scale inequities. In addition, differences in residents’ perceived benefits and experiential quality between Pocket Gardens and conventional parks remain a limitation, suggesting the need for further research on qualitative and perceptual dimensions of green space equity. From a policy perspective, this study highlights the potential of decentralized, community-driven green space strategies as a complementary climate adaptation approach that supports urban resilience and environmental equity.
*This work was supported by Korea Environment Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI) through Climate Change R&D Project for New Climate Regime Program, funded by Korea Ministry of Environment (MOE)(RS-2023-00221110)
How to cite: Kim, E., Lee, J.-K., and Kim, C.: Evaluating the Effects of a Citizen-Participatory Green Space Policy in Enhancing Park Equity, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-15684, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-15684, 2026.
Effective climate change adaptation at the municipal level requires decision-support tools that translate scientific risk assessments into actionable, place-based policy choices. However, climate vulnerability assessments produced at national or regional scales often lack the spatial resolution needed to support site-specific intervention and policy prioritization. This study presents a science–policy hybrid approach that spatializes climate change adaptation policy as a decision-support tool, drawing on the Third Climate Crisis Adaptation Plan of Suwon City, South Korea.
The planning process began with an analysis of long-term climate trends and historical damage records related to major climate-driven hazards, including heatwaves, cold waves, and heavy rainfall, which were identified as the most critical climate risks for Suwon City. To operationalize these risk assessments for policy use, localized and downscaled vulnerability analyses were conducted at the municipal scale, integrating socio-demographic indicators with spatial exposure mapping.
Heatwave vulnerability was assessed by combining age structure, health conditions, and socioeconomic status with spatial indicators of solar exposure and urban surface characteristics to identify priority intervention areas. Cold-wave vulnerability focused on elderly individuals living alone and low-income groups, alongside spatial identification of areas with high freezing risk. Heavy rainfall vulnerability was addressed through spatial analysis of flood-prone infrastructure, including underground buildings and underpasses.
The resulting spatial vulnerability maps function as decision-support outputs that enable the identification of priority project sites and the sequencing of adaptation measures across policy sectors. By embedding these localized and downscaled spatial outputs into municipal adaptation planning, the approach strengthens policy prioritization, facilitates targeted resource allocation, and enhances implementation capacity. This case illustrates how spatialization can effectively bridge scientific climate risk analysis and practical urban adaptation policy, offering transferable insights for other local governments seeking decision-supportive, place-based climate resilience strategies.
*This work was supported by Korea Environment Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI) through Climate Change R&D Project for New Climate Regime Program, funded by Korea Ministry of Environment (MOE)(RS-2023-00221110)
How to cite: Kim, C., Kang, E., Kim, S., Park, C., and Kim, E.: Spatializing Climate Change Adaptation as a Decision-Support Tool: Evidence from Suwon City, South Korea, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-15899, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-15899, 2026.
In semi-arid rangelands, land degradation is closely linked to changes in surface water movement-runoff happens quickly, water soaks in slowly, and soil moisture stays low. Nature-based solutions (NbS) like semi-circular bunds (SCBs) are being used more often to disrupt these negative cycles by slowing down surface water, increasing infiltration, and helping soils retain moisture. Despite their growing popularity, the broader ecological effects of SCBs are rarely measured beyond plant responses, especially during early stages of restoration.
This study offers a comprehensive look at how various groups of organisms respond to SCB restoration in Naibunga Conservancy, northern Kenya, focusing on hydrologically driven changes. Using a paired intervention-control design at three degraded sites, we tracked key indicators among plants, macrofungi, invertebrates, herpetofauna, and birds within two to three years of installing SCBs. Fieldwork combined systematic surveys with community science, emphasizing functional groups and indicator species tied to soil health, moisture, and ecosystem roles instead of just counting species.
Restored plots showed strong early signals of ecohydrological recovery. We observed greater numbers of soil engineers such as termites, dung beetles, and ants, along with decomposer fungi, reflecting better soil structure and increased organic matter breakdown due to improved moisture. Early-stage and mid-successional plants flourished in areas around the bunds, indicating more infiltration and less erosion. More ground-dwelling reptiles appeared in restored areas, likely benefiting from the cooler, moister habitats created by SCBs. Bird communities were also richer and more abundant in intervention sites, especially insect- and seed-eating species responding to improved vegetation and food availability.
These results reveal that SCBs set off a chain of ecohydrological recovery, where changes in water patterns drive biological responses across different levels of the food web. Tracking indicator species and functional groups provided early, sensitive measures of restoration success, outperforming overall species counts during early succession. This research highlights the importance of linking hydrological monitoring with multi-species ecological assessments for evaluating NbS in water-limited rangelands.
How to cite: Odeny, D., Owuor, M., Okello, C., Demory, M.-E., Kimiri, A., Kiaka, R., Malaki, P., Odhiambo, C., Funnell, S., Mwebi, O., Agwanda, B., Nyandiala, A., Lusweti, A., Kioko, G., Bwong, B., Adhola, T., Wandera, A., Monchari, B., Kupanu, M., and Imboma, T. and the Dickens Odeny: Hydrologically mediated multi-taxa indicator responses to early-stage rangeland restoration using semi-circular bunds in a semi-arid African conservancy, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-18124, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-18124, 2026.
Agroforestry systems may increase carbon storage of agricultural land, while simultaneously offering the potential for improved nutrient availability. The extent to which trees integrated into agricultural land and the accompanying potential increase of carbon input influence soil structure with regard to hydrologically relevant parameters, and thus water dynamics, storage, and availability, remains unclear.
In a case study in Malawi, two similar agroforestry experiments of the World Agroforestry (ICRAF) at different locations and of different durations (>10 and >30 years) were investigated. The systems consist of maize and Gliricidia sepium, which accumulate nitrogen in the soil as well as carbon through the incorporation of cut leaves and branches into the soil. Measurements were taken from soil samples and combined with 3-month measurement series to record the temporal dynamics of soil water fluxes. The same sampling scheme and measurement setup were used to compare maize control plots and agroforestry plots: Carbon concentrations and density fractionation were used to estimate the stability of the organic matter, along with soil physical and hydrological properties (e.g. saturated hydraulic conductivity), soil water content and matrix potential at various depths, water retention curves, and responses to precipitation events.
A significant increase in carbon concentrations and carbon stability was observed in the soil of the agroforestry plot. This effect was considerably greater in the system that had a lower initial carbon content before the start of the agroforestry experiment. However, the differences in carbon stability did not have immediate effects on soil hydrological properties such as porosity or bulk density, and therefore, no direct effects on soil water fluxes were detectable, which were also influenced by factors such as interception.
The agroforestry plot showed a greater soil water storage capacity and was able to retain more water overall. Additionally, a protective effect against topsoil desiccation was observed in the agroforestry plot, possibly due to macropores and resulting faster infiltration. A well-considered and site-adapted combination of plants can play an important role in improving water use. In particular, improving storage capacity can be crucial in arid regions or during dry periods.
How to cite: Hoffmeister, S., Hassler, S. K., Lang, F., Maier, R., Nyoka, B. I., and Zehe, E.: Coupling of soil carbon and soil water dynamics in two agroforestry systems in Malawi, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-5693, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-5693, 2026.
Under the global climate change and the "Dual Carbon" strategy background, land use and land cover change serves as a core driver of terrestrial ecosystem carbon storage changes, and its spatiotemporal differentiation mechanism is of great significance for carbon sink assessment and territorial spatial planning in arid regions. This study takes Xinjiang, a typical arid region, as the research object, integrates the Patch-generating Land Use Simulation (PLUS) model and the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model, and based on land use data from 2000-2024, reveals and predicts the land use patterns and carbon storage changes under three scenarios for 2030: natural development, economic development, and ecological protection. The results show that: (1) From 2000 to 2024, land use in Xinjiang was dominated by unused land and grassland, accounting for over 90% of the total area. The area of grassland and unused land decreased, while cropland and construction land expanded significantly by 28.80×10³ km² and 4.29×10³ km², respectively. (2) From 2000 to 2024, carbon storage showed a slow upward trend, increasing from 96.05×10⁸ t to 97.13×10⁸ t. High-value areas were concentrated in the forest belts and lake basins of the Tianshan, Altai, and Kunlun Mountains, while low-value areas were distributed in the Tarim and Junggar Basins. Level 3 carbon storage, as the core carbon sink, remained stable, and Level 2 and Level 4 carbon storage maintained a dynamic balance. (3) The carbon storage under the three scenarios in 2030 is 97.14×10⁸ t, 97.11×10⁸ t, and 97.44×10⁸ t respectively. The ecological protection scenario reduced carbon loss by 0.41×10⁶ t under expansion control, revealing the key role of strengthening the protection of high-carbon-density land classes and promoting the conversion of low-carbon land classes to forest and grassland in enhancing the carbon sink in arid regions, providing a scientific basis for territorial spatial optimization and carbon neutrality pathways in arid regions.
How to cite: Yu, W.: Carbon Storage Effects of Land Use in Xinjiang — 2030 Multi-Scenario Simulation Based on the PLUS-InVEST Model, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-9086, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-9086, 2026.
Nature-based solutions (NbS) are increasingly recognized as key strategies for restoring land, water, and biodiversity in arid and semi-arid landscapes under climate change. Cryptogamic–microbial communities, particularly biological soil crusts (biocrusts), together with native plants, play a central role in dryland ecosystem functioning through their influence on biogeochemical cycling, soil stabilization, water regulation, and biodiversity maintenance. However, their contributions to restoration remain insufficiently explored under rapidly expanding land-use changes, including renewable energy infrastructures.
Ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV) solar farms are rapidly expanding across global drylands. While often associated with strong ecological disturbance, they also create novel microclimatic conditions that may be harnessed as nature-based solutions for ecosystem restoration. Here, we present the conceptual framework and research approach of ECOSOLARID, a coordinated project (PID2024-161692OB-C31, PID2024-161692OB-C32, PID2024-161692OB-C33, funded by MICIU/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union) that explores the eco-valorization of solar farms as sources of biotic resources—native plants and biocrusts—for dryland restoration. ECOSOLARID is based on the hypothesis that PV-induced microsites, characterized by altered radiation, temperature, wind exposure, and water redistribution, can facilitate the establishment, activity, and functional performance of biocrust-forming organisms (e.g. cyanobacteria and bryophytes) and native plant species. These conditions may allow solar farms to function as large-scale nurseries producing restoration-ready biotic resources, while simultaneously enhancing ecosystem functioning within the farms themselves. The project integrates ecohydrological, biogeochemical, and microbial perspectives across three PV farms spanning an aridity gradient in southern Spain. The approach includes: (i) assessing PV-driven changes in plant and biocrust diversity, microbial community composition, and key ecosystem functions (carbon and nitrogen cycling, soil stability, and water regulation); (ii) experimentally developing plant and biocrust nurseries under contrasting PV-generated microsites; (iii) applying microbial-based enhancement technologies to improve biocrust establishment, plant performance, and nutrient cycling; and (iv) evaluating the effectiveness of PV-generated biotic resources for restoring degraded dryland ecosystems both within and beyond solar farm boundaries.
By reframing solar farms as restoration resource hubs rather than solely energy-producing infrastructures, ECOSOLARID advances an innovative nature-based solution that reconciles renewable energy production with dryland restoration, ecosystem service enhancement, and biogeochemical sustainability under a changing climate.
How to cite: Muñoz-Rojas, M., Rodriguez-Caballero, E., Chamizo, S., and Canton, Y.: Eco-valorization of solar farms as biotic resource hubs for ecosystem restoration under global change, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-20538, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-20538, 2026.
Abstract: Catastrophic disasters devastate both physical infrastructure and the livelihood foundations of communities, yet post-disaster recovery and reconstruction (PDRR) research and practice often focus on the physical and socio-economic dimensions in parallel tracks, overlooking the critical interplay between physical space and livelihood. This study advances an integrative framework to explanation how physical and livelihood dimensions interact and co-evolve within the complex process of PDRR. Focusing on the post-Wenchuan earthquake context and employing a mixed-methods approach, this study reveals that, despite unprecedented speed and scale in infrastructure and housing rebuilding, livelihood recovery was markedly uneven. This divergence is explained by four core mechanisms that dynamically interacted and evolved across recovery stages: (1) the tensions in planning transmission between top-down standardization and local adaptation; (2) the complex capital conversion, where investments in physical assets often constrained financial, natural, and human capital; (3) the delayed feedback regulation between lived experience and policy adjustment; and (4) the conditioning role of contextual factors that mediated outcomes. This study concludes that transcending this paradox requires a shift from infrastructure-centric delivery to adaptive socio-spatial governance—one that institutionalizes community feedback, manages cross-capital trade-offs, and enables context-sensitive implementation to align physical restoration with long-term livelihood resilience and sustainable regional development.
Keywords: post-disaster recovery and reconstruction; physical space; livelihood space; synergistic mechanisms; Wenchuan earthquake
How to cite: jia, X. and wang, J.: Reconstructing Livelihoods, Not Just Houses: The Dynamic Physical and Livelihood Interplay in Wenchuan Earthquake PDRR, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-16442, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-16442, 2026.
Nitrogen eutrophication rapidly reduces species diversity, yet its impacts on the stable provision of ecosystem functions remain poorly understood. To address this gap, we applied an extended diversity–stability framework to a globally distributed grassland nitrogen addition experiment and partitioned ecosystem stability and its components, i.e., population stability and species asynchrony, into dominant and subordinate groups. We found that ecosystem stability was primarily driven by dominant species and exhibited an abundance-specific response. This response arose because nitrogen addition promoted the growth of dominant species, which in turn suppressed subordinate species. Consequently, asynchronized dynamics between the two groups coincided with reduced species diversity, and declines in population stability were confined to subordinate species. These findings indicate that, in natural ecosystems, uneven species abundances can obscure the positive effects of species diversity on species asynchronous and ecosystem stability, as predicted by theoretical and experimental studies under relatively even species-abundance distributions.
How to cite: Wang, Y.: Eutrophication asynchronized species due to abundance-specific responses, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-2899, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-2899, 2026.
In semi-arid tropical regions, water scarcity poses a formidable challenge to agricultural productivity and regional water security. For this, Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) could be a better alternative. However, the conventional approaches of identifying the best RWH sites often overlook the complex spatio-temporal dynamics of hydrological processes and critical socio-economic constraints. To deal with this limitation, this study presents a framework that synergistically integrates the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model with a geospatial Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) approach. The advocated approach has been verified in the Daund watershed (11,205 km2) in western India, as a test case. In reproducing the observed daily streamflow hydrographs at the basin outlet, SWAT is first calibrated with the coefficient of determination (R2) and Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) of 0.70 and 0.67, respectively; which are of R2 = 0.66 and NSE = 0.63 during validation. Subsequently, using the Analytic Hierarchy Process framework, thematic layers of ten critical biophysical parameters, viz. rainfall, slope, elevation, soil texture, soil depth, land use/land cover, drainage density, geomorphology, curvature, and SWAT-derived runoff coefficients are used to create a comprehensive potential RWH zoning map. This potential map is further refined by incorporating socio-economic exclusion criteria, such as buffer zones around drainage networks, roads, urban centres, and geological fault lines, ensuring the proposed structures' practical feasibility and safety. The final RWH potential zonation revealed that approximately 29% of the watershed area is highly suitable, 47% moderately suitable, and 24% poorly suitable for RWH interventions. The predictive robustness of the advocated framework has been rigorously validated against the locations of surveyed 494 RWH structures in the watershed, achieving a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.77, signifying high accuracy. This research unequivocally demonstrates that integrating a hydrological model like SWAT with the MCDM framework could enhance the reliability of potential RWH mapping that could be upscaled to other tropical basins worldwide confronting similar hydro-climatic challenges.
How to cite: Mohanty, S., Reddy, P. G., Sahoo, B., and Chatterjee, C.: A Coupled SWAT-MCDM Framework for Delineating Potential Rainwater Harvesting Zones in a Tropical Semi-Arid Basin, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-3082, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-3082, 2026.
Climate change is intensifying the hydrologic cycle, leading to more frequent and severe rainfall-driven (pluvial) flooding in urban areas. In the mid-Atlantic US cities, aging and under-designed stormwater infrastructure is increasingly strained by these events, resulting in recurring damage to property and disruptions to transportation networks. In this study, we combine community engagement with hydrologic modeling to develop and evaluate potential urban flood adaptation strategies. Over a three-year period, local technical experts and community representatives met regularly to discuss flooding concerns, identify priorities, and co-develop adaptation strategies. These discussions informed the development of an urban flooding model (EPA Storm Water Management Model) for the Baltimore Harbor watershed, the focus location of this study. The flooding model integrates complex surface and subsurface stormwater infrastructure data, local expert knowledge, and community insights. We simulate stakeholder-prioritized adaptations, such as green and gray infrastructure strategies. Model results demonstrate that enhanced infrastructure maintenance is the most effective adaptation for reducing flood depths, but has varied effects across the watershed, and can increase flooding in some locations. Spatially concentrated greening provides limited benefit to the watershed as a whole, but moderate benefit in community priority areas. Together, these adaptations have the potential to reduce flood depths by as much as 58% in some locations, greatly reducing property damage and mobility impacts, primary concerns of stakeholders. Future work will implement robust optimization tools to search for adaptations which meet stakeholder objectives and perform highly under varied future climate conditions. This work contributes to the expanding literature on collaborative modeling and demonstrates that community-engaged approaches can enhance model credibility and generate more actionable insights for communities seeking to strengthen climate resilience.
How to cite: Spangler, A. and Hadjimichael, A.: Community-Informed Urban Flood Modeling for Impact Mitigation, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-8336, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-8336, 2026.
The Great Green Wall (GGW) was launched in 2007 as a large-scale restoration program to combat land degradation across the African Sahel. While substantial progress has been made in vegetation restoration, its impacts on biodiversity remain poorly quantified. This study assesses the causal effects of the GGW on avian species richness in three representative countries: Senegal (West Africa), Nigeria (Central Africa), and Ethiopia (East Africa).
We employed ensemble species distribution models (biomod2) to project habitat suitability for avian species in each country, producing predictions for baseline (2007–2015) and current (2016–2024) periods. Causal inference was established through 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM) based on pre-treatment environmental covariates, pairing GGW areas with comparable controls, followed by difference-in-differences (DID) estimation of the Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT). To disentangle climate and vegetation contributions, we constructed factorial scenarios combining environmental layers from both periods, decomposing species richness changes into climate-driven, vegetation-driven, and interaction effects.
Results reveal divergent GGW impacts. Nigeria demonstrated significant positive effects (ATT = +7.45; p < 0.001), with scenario decomposition indicating vegetation-driven effects dominated biodiversity gains—suggesting active restoration effectively enhanced habitat quality. Ethiopia showed no significant difference between GGW and control areas (ATT = −2.48; p = 0.13), with climate and vegetation effects comparable across treatments. Senegal exhibited limited benefits in GGW areas (ATT = −4.17; p < 0.001), where climate-driven changes dominated and vegetation effects remained constrained. These contrasting outcomes demonstrate that large-scale restoration does not uniformly deliver biodiversity co-benefits, as regional contexts and implementation intensity critically mediate effectiveness. Nigeria's success highlights the potential for well-implemented restoration to generate measurable biodiversity gains, while variable outcomes elsewhere underscore the need for adaptive management accounting for local conditions.
Our findings provide policy-relevant evidence for optimizing pan-African restoration initiatives. We recommend prioritizing high-potential regions, integrating biodiversity monitoring into evaluation, and adopting locally tailored adaptive management. The PSM-DID-SDM-scenario decomposition framework offers a transferable methodology for evaluating large-scale conservation interventions globally.
Keywords: avian biodiversity; species distribution models; causal inference; difference-in-differences; ecological restoration; Sahel
How to cite: Wang, Y., Scott, C. E., and Dallimer, M.: Does large-scale restoration work for biodiversity? Counterfactual evidence from Africa's Great Green Wall, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-14532, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-14532, 2026.
There is great interest in promoting urban nature-based solutions for informal settlements in the global south, for their contributions to climate change adaptation and disaster reduction, alongside other potential social, environmental, and economic benefits. However, top-down solutions might lead to unsatisfactory or even unjust results, while ground-up initiatives might remain under-resourced and difficult to scale. Taking a wider perspective, this research explores the social conditions, governance, and institutions which enable or disable the development of urban nature-based solutions and influence their outcomes in policy targeted at informal housing improvement. This research-in-progress first attempts to (1) adapt the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework by Elinor Ostrom for informal housing communities, before (2) applying the framework to the case of 3 upgraded informal settlement projects in Bangkok. By conceptualizing communal urban nature-based solutions such as shared green space as novel commons, we explore the use of the IAD framework as a tool to analyze opportunities and obstacles for different stakeholders – policymakers, community leaders, community members, NGOs, and academics – to take collective action to implement and maintain communal nature-based solutions across different stages of the informal housing upgrading process.
The IAD framework has been mostly used to analyze socio-ecological systems whereby users have to manage an ecological resource they share and are all economically dependent on, such as timber or fish. However, shared urban nature-based solutions in informal settlement may not fit this definition, even if some economic benefits can be reaped e.g. from selling produce from community gardens. Yet, urban nature-based solutions are important in helping communities adapt to disasters and enhance their climate resilience. For example, green spaces can provide some cooling effect in the context of increased temperatures and contribute to food security of the communities. We refer to the literature to adapt the IAD framework into one that is better fit for the purpose of understanding urban-nature-based solutions and the role they play in promoting the climate resilience and adaptative capacities of marginalized urban communities, draw on other concepts like collective action and novel commons, and incorporate different stakeholder roles into the model.
Thereafter, we attempt to apply the adapted framework to the case of community gardens in upgraded informal settlements in Bangkok under the government’s Baan Mankong project. We draw on previous and ongoing research, which includes surveys, interviews, and observational data on the development of community gardens and their perceived benefits to community members in each settlement, and levels of participation with regards to the community garden. The Baan Mankong project is an example of collective housing upgrading and is noted for its scale and for being a government-driven, institutionalized policy rather than initiated by NGOs. By applying the IAD and corroborating them with field data where possible, we not only illustrate the use of the framework in policy targeting informal housing improvement and nature-based solutions but also contribute empirical insights and identify hypotheses for future research on the Thai context.
How to cite: Ng, Y. P. S., Gohain Baruah, A., Natakun, B., and Hamel, P.: Applying the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework for Community-Based, Urban Nature-Based Solutions: Informal Settlement Upgrading Projects in Bangkok, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-16893, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-16893, 2026.
Posters virtual: Wed, 6 May, 14:00–18:00 | vPoster spot 4
EGU26-6983 | ECS | Posters virtual | VPS32
A Satellite-Based Climatology of Fog and Low Stratus to Support Nature-Based Water Harvesting in Arid Areas of MoroccoWed, 06 May, 14:09–14:12 (CEST) vPoster spot 4
In arid and semi-arid landscapes like many areas in Morocco, addressing water scarcity requires innovative nature-based solutions (NbS). Fog and Low Stratus (FLS) clouds constitute a major atmospheric feature in Morocco, simultaneously representing a significant hazard for air, maritime, and road transportation and a valuable nature-based water resource for arid and semi-arid ecosystems through fog-water harvesting. However, effective implementation of such NbS depends on precise identification of viable locations and optimal collection periods. In a country characterized by strong climatic heterogeneity and limited ground-based observations, satellite remote sensing provides a critical means for assessing the spatial and temporal availability of this underutilized water source under current and future climate variability. This study introduces a novel nighttime FLS detection algorithm specifically designed for Morocco’s diverse climatic regimes, using only infrared observations from the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) SEVIRI instrument. Hourly satellite data spanning 2020–2024 were processed to produce the first high-resolution, national-scale climatology of FLS occurrence over Morocco. Designed for the region's heterogeneous climates, the tool provides essential monitoring for assessing NbS potential. The algorithm was systematically validated using coincident hourly SYNOP observations from the Moroccan Directorate General of Meteorology network. Validation results demonstrate reliable performance, with a probability of detection exceeding 54%, a false alarm ratio close to 45%, and a frequency bias generally within 1.4. The resulting climatology reveals two major coastal hotspots of persistent FLS occurrence along Morocco’s Atlantic façade, in the Northwest and Southwest, both exhibiting pronounced seasonal and diurnal cycles. These regions coincide with areas of high potential for fog-water harvesting, offering a climate-resilient, nature-based solution to enhance water availability in water-stressed environments. These findings directly inform hydrological planning by pinpointing areas where fog harvesting projects are most likely to be effective and resilient. By providing spatially explicit and operationally robust information on FLS occurrence, this study supports the integration of satellite-based monitoring into the planning and upscaling of fog-water harvesting systems. The results contribute to broader NbS strategies aimed at improving water security, supporting ecosystem services, and strengthening climate adaptation in arid and semi-arid landscapes.
How to cite: Mouhtadi, A., Bari, D., and Mordane, S.: A Satellite-Based Climatology of Fog and Low Stratus to Support Nature-Based Water Harvesting in Arid Areas of Morocco, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-6983, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-6983, 2026.
