The social, economic, and environmental benefits of nature-based solutions on the adaptive capacity of local communities to climate change.

Climate change its effects on low-lying coastal areas entail a wide variety of issues such as increases in the frequency and intensity of erosion and floods. To address these climatological issues, there is a need for these low-lying coastal areas to increase their adaptive capacity regarding climate change. This need to address the multitude of climate-related issues more sustainably has contributed to the usage of Nature-based Solutions (NbS), which make use of ecosystems services derived from these NbS. However, thus far there is a knowledge gap concerning the relationship between the social, economic, and environmental ecosystem benefits derived from such NbS and their effects on the adaptive capacity and level of vulnerability of coastal areas. The aim of this study is therefore to contribute to this knowledge gap. With regards to the methodology, the research made use of the case study approach in which the “Building with Nature” project in the Weg naar Zee (WnZ) area, along the coast of the city of Paramaribo, was assessed. This project tries to address the climate-related issues occurring in this area by rehabilitating the mangrove ecosystems. For the primary data collection, the combination of 6 semi-structured interviews along with the administration of 165 questionnaires were used. This analysis of data had the main purpose of identifying the different social, economic, and environmental benefits provided by the mangrove NbS and their influence on the adaptive capacity, natural and socio-economic vulnerability of the WnZ area. The findings of the study point out that the project has contributed to the provisioning of ecosystem services (ES) in all three categories of social, economic, and environmental benefits, with the more profound benefits being within the social and environmental categories. The results furthermore point out that the project has contributed to different adaptive capacity aspects, while also influencing the level of vulnerability within said area. The main research findings establish that there is a relationship between the three different main concepts of ES, adaptive capacity, and vulnerability. The main relationship within the project is between the ES provided, especially that of educational services, and the access to formal and informal learning, which increases adaptive capacity in the area. Moreover, these increases in adaptive capacity influence the vulnerability of the area indicating the direct connection between adaptive capacity and vulnerability and the indirect connection between ES and vulnerability. However, from the results, it can further be derived that certain ES provided can also directly influence the vulnerability of an area.