World Refrigeration Day poster

This briefing note serves as an introduction to the series, with a focus on creating conceptual clarity on EbA and its relation to other related approaches, as well as how EbA is key to achieving a much needed paradigm shift.

This briefing note provides an overview of EbA measures commonly implemented in particular ecosystems (mountains, drylands, wetlands, coasts, and urban systems), reflecting interventions supported by UN Environment EbA projects, and highlights through example outcome indicators how their contribution towards achieving identified adaptation goals can be monitored. To set the scene, it describes typical degradation cycles for terrestrial and coastal ecosystems and explores the environmental, climatic and socio-economic dynamics particular to selected ecosystems.

Nature was once vast and boundless, but in an industrialized, 21st century world, this is no longer the case. Across the globe,
landscapes and seascapes are becoming more fragmented. Fragmentation is typically a symptom of landscape transformation and destruction. Maintaining or restoring connectivity between fragmented habitats or landscape patches has been identified as the key to counteracting many of the negative impacts of
fragmentation. Connectivity can be defined as the degree to
which landscapes and seascapes allow species to move freely
and ecological processes to function unimpeded.