EbA Tools Navigator

“Climate-Smart” Agriculture: Policies, Practices and Financing for Food Security, Adaptation and Mitigation outlines a range of practices, approaches and tools aimed at increasing the resilience and productivity of agricultural production systems, while also reducing and removing emissions. The second part of the paper surveys institutional and policy options available to promote the transition to climate-smart agriculture at the smallholder level. Finally, the paper considers current financing gaps and makes innovative suggestions regarding the combined use of different sources, financing mechanisms and delivery systems.

A Comparative Assessment of Decision-support Tools for Ecosystem Services Quantification and Valuation is a research paper that describes 17 ecosystem services tools and rates their performance against eight evaluative criteria that gauge their readiness for widespread application in public- and private-sector decision making. It describes each of the tools′ intended uses, services modelled, analytical approaches, data requirements, and outputs, as well as time requirements to run seven tools in a first comparative concurrent application of multiple tools to a common location – the San Pedro River watershed in southeast Arizona, USA, and northern Sonora, Mexico. Based on this work, the paper offers conclusions about these tools′ current ‘readiness’ for widespread application within both public- and private-sector decision making processes. Finally, it describes potential pathways forward to reduce the resource requirements for running ecosystem services models, which are essential to facilitate their more widespread use in environmental decision making.

A Field Guide to Community Based Adaptation provides a system of building block activities for staff on the ground to use in developing and implementing successful adaptation to climate change projects that can be co-managed and sustained by communities. Based on years of use in 129 different countries, the techniques illustrated in this field guide use a step-by-step progression to lead readers through problem assessment, project design, implementation and community take over. The book equips development staff with all the tools and techniques they need to improve current project effectiveness, to introduce community based adaptation into organizational programming and to generate new projects. The techniques provided can be applied to broad range of challenges, from agriculture and soil and water challenges, to health concerns, flood defences and market development.

A Framework for Assessing Vulnerability of Forest-based Communities to Climate Change describes a general framework for and approach to assessing the vulnerability of forest-based communities to climate change and the potentially increased risks associated with such change. The report identifies specific elements that should be considered in assessing vulnerability and outlines a series of steps that researchers or a community itself may follow to systematically determine sources of vulnerability to climate change.

A Framework to Assess Returns on Investments in the Dryland Systems of Northern Kenya is a working paper that presents an assessment framework for weighing the total economic value of the ecosystem services provided by pastoral and mixed land-use systems under anticipated climate changes and variability. It presents a four-step process and points to useful tools for carrying out each step.

A Guiding Toolkit for Increasing Climate Change Resilience is a compilation of tools and methodologies used to integrate the components of the resilience framework into local and national strategies in a full participatory manner allowing greater resilience of the local community toward climate and other global changes. It demonstrates the flows of activities under each practical step and shows how these different steps are interlinked to deliver integrated and more resilient climate change adaptation plans such as wetlands, floodplains and mangroves that store water, lower flood peaks or protect coastal communities.

The Handbook for Measuring the Progress and Outcomes of Integrated Coastal and Ocean Management presents a range of environmental indicators to monitor the state of the coastal and marine environment, as well as socioeconomic and governance indicators. The indicators are aligned to Integrated Coastal and Ocean Management objectives. It also outlines an approach to test the selected indicators and provides case examples of indicators embedded within a range of evaluation frameworks; for example, logical frameworks.

This meeting report of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Indicators contains a range of indicators that can be adopted to measure performance across four key questions: How is the status of biodiversity changing? (state); Why are we losing biodiversity? (pressures and underlying causes); What are the implications? (benefits); and What do we do about it? (responses). There is an embedded excel file providing additional information on the indicators, including scale, scientific validity, ease of communication, data requirements and details on who is measuring (agencies).

Adaptation Compass is a guidance tool (in Excel and PDF) to check vulnerability and adaptation options across sectors for urban areas (at the scale of region, city or project). It applies a pre-structured assessment and documentation layout, which enables the user to plan the stages of adaptation to create climate proof cities. The tool provides general information and automated answers. It also gives the user the opportunity to submit local information.

The nine practices in the Adaptation Good Practice (AGP) Checklist define the range of activity areas that are needed for adaptation to climate change. They are derived from a synthesis of practical experience in Africa, UNFCCC and Green Climate Fund documents on adaptation planning, finance, gaps, paradigm shifts and social environmental safeguards. The checklist supports design, decisions, capacity building, implementation and monitoring of adaptation, in relation to the roll out of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and adaptation finance. It can be used to inform or screen concepts, proposals, implementation plans and national budgets for their incorporation of and compliance with adaptation good practices, and to determine the focus of research and capacity building.

The Adaptation Made to Measure Guidebook presents a five-step approach to designing adaptation projects and results-based monitoring systems. It offers practical advice to the questions “What characterises an adaptation project?” and “How can adaptation results be measured?”. It also provides a reference source for national and international organisations, NGOs and re-search bodies that seek a practical frame of reference for the results-based design of adaptation interventions and verification of the results achieved. This new edition of the guidebook was fully updated in November 2013. It is accompanied by an excel tool (MACC Tool) and a repository of adaptation indicators.

The Adaptation Project Tool provides Pacific focused guidance on scoping, developing and planning climate change adaptation projects, including helping users access resources and develop project concept notes and preliminary project proposals.

The Adaptation Support Tool is an online tool that consists of six steps that together help the user explore risks and vulnerability to the current and future climate, identify and assess adaptation options, develop and implement a climate change adaptation strategy and/or action plan, and monitor its results. Each step of the Adaptation Support Tool consists of a general introduction and a number of more detailed support sections. It is recommended that users read through the introduction of each step before they choose to either examine it in detail or proceed to the next step. The Adaptation Support Tool will not produce a tailor made climate adaptation strategy at the press of a button. It rather intends to highlight key issues to consider when planning and implementing adaptation and provides access to relevant information, tools and resources.

Adaptation to Climate Change in Agriculture: Evaluation of Options provides a framework to consistently and systematically evaluate adaptation options to climate change in agriculture. It reviews approaches to evaluating adaptation options to climate change; demonstrates the applicability of the framework to agricultural adaptation through case studies; and identifies important constraints and opportunities for incorporating adaptations to climate in agricultural decision-making.

Adaptation to Climate Change in Management of Prairie Grasslands examines adaptation options for addressing major areas of vulnerability of prairie grasslands to climate change (identified in Thorpe 2011), including:
– Shifts in vegetation zones, with implications for woody cover, grassland structure and photosynthetic types
– Changes in average grassland productivity
– Increased frequency of drought years with low productivity
– Shifts in biodiversity including migration of new species and emergence of new communities
– Increased risk of exotic invasion
– Loss of wetlands

Adaptation Tool Kit: Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Land Use provides a concise overview of a range of planning, regulatory and spending tools to assist adaptation decision-making.

Adaptation Toolkit: Guidebook for Community-Based Adaptation Practitioners covers the following areas of climate change adaptation practice: resource mapping; capacity and asset mapping; trend analysis and historical disturbance profile; current vulnerability mapping; climate change perceptions; participatory scenario-building and back-casting; adaptation screening; and local research: good practice. For each topic, the toolkit presents a brief description, as well as guidance on objectives, expected outcomes, resources, and activities.

AdaptationCommunity.net was developed for the interested public and adaptation experts to provide information on applying approaches, methods and tools that facilitate the planning and implementation of adaptation action. Furthermore, enhancing knowledge and sharing experience is the key to successful adaptation strategies. Therefore this platform offers a wealth of information, webinars and trainings on eight key topics: climate information and services; vulnerability assessment; mainstreaming and National Adaptation Planning (NAP); NAP and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs); ecosystem-based adaptation; climate risk management; private sector adaptation; and monitoirng and evaluation.

This adaptation guidance manual is designed to assist planners and stakeholders in the identification and analysis of adaptation options through a stepwise approach drawing on relevant case studies.

This coastal adaptation guidebook proposes an approach for assessing vulnerability to climate change and climate variability, developing and implementing adaptation options, and integrating options into programmes, development plans and projects at the national and local levels.

The Adaptive Management Technical Guide addresses four basic questions concerning adaptive management: (1) What is adaptive management? (2) When should it be used? (3) How should it be implemented? (4) How can its success be recognized and measured? The structure of the guide is organised around these key questions with individual chapters addressing each of the questions.

The MARISCO methodology is used to facilitate the integration of the risk and vulnerability perspective into the management of conservation projects and sites. The MARISCO methodology is used to facilitate the integration of the risk and vulnerability perspective into the management of conservation projects and sites. It is designed to ensure that the impact of climate change is taken into account in the strategic management of protected areas, but is not limited to climate change. It has been developed in cooperation of GIZ and the HNE Eberswalde in workshops and projects in Germany, Ukraine, China, Guatemala and Peru.

This toolbox provides you with a number of tools and exercises, and offers
further reading on selected topics. It thereby supports the implementation of the
Guidance Note ‘Addressing Climate-Fragility Risks’ which facilitates the
development of strategies, policies, and projects that seek to increase resilience
by linking climate change adaptation, peacebuilding, and sustainable
livelihoods. Each tool and exercise is explained in detail. More complex tools are
broken down into individual steps.

ALivE is a computer-based tool designed to support its users in organising and analysing information to plan effective EbA options within a broader EbA planning process. ALivE stands for Adaptation, Livelihoods and Ecosystems. It is a rapid qualitative assessment technique that can be applied in any ecosystem.

A 30 page toolkit that presents 16 intervention-specific sheets to enable the decision-maker to assess, evaluate, and choose the most suitable interventions to address the problems identified in their catchment.

This Introductory Guide to Valuing Ecosystem Services provides a practical introduction to the key steps to be undertaken in valuing ecosystem services in a policy appraisal context. The guide takes an impact pathway approach to valuing ecosystem services. It builds on traditional valuation approaches. In particular, Chapter 3 provides an overview of the steps to be taken in valuing the impacts on ecosystem services, which includes identifying policy options and the current baseline; assessing the impact of policy options on the provision of ecosystem services, and valuing the changes in ecosystem services.

Tracking Adaptation and Measuring Development (TAMD) addresses the need for evaluative frameworks that assess the relative (or comparative) effectiveness of interventions that directly and/or indirectly address adaptation to climate change. While TAMD has been developed in the context of the International Climate Fund (ICF), the intention is to deliver a framework that is sufficiently practical, flexible and transparent to be applied in, or modified for, a wide variety of contexts and over a range of different scales, from the national (and supranational) to the local. The paper identifies specific indicators that may be used with TAMD and addresses a number of challenges in evaluating adaptation, including the need to establish baselines, how data can be collected, and how theories of change and empirical evidence can together help attribute outcomes to adaptation interventions. Finally, a checklist for applying TAMD is presented.

The Approach for Reporting on Ecosystem Services guide translates emerging thinking on ecosystem services into sustainability reporting indicators, and outlines approaches that can be used by organisations in all sectors. While focused on organisations, the guide provides an introduction to ecosystem services and assessment approaches, including criteria for indicator design.

ARIES is a software application that supports ecosystem service assessment and valuation. It builds models of supply and demand for ecosystem services from stored component models, and simulates the dynamic flow of benefits spatially. It is able to accommodate scales an use different forms of input data, measurements units and modelling paradigms.

Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Adaptation Options: An Overview of Approaches provides an introduction to a range of different assessment approaches and methodologies to assessing the costs and benefits of climate change adaptation options and shares best practices and lessons learned. It includes a diverse range of case studies to illustrate adaptation assessment methods and options.

ADAPT is a software-based multi-sectoral tool for screening development projects for potential sensitive areas to climate change. The tool brings together climate databases and expert assessments on the threats and opportunities arising from climate variability/change and focuses primarily on agriculture, biodiversity, rural infrastructure and coastal zones.

Atlantis an ecosystem model that considers all parts of marine ecosystems – biophysical, economic and social. Originally focused on the biophysical world and then fisheries it has grown to begin to be used for multiple use and climate questions. Atlantis is a deterministic biogeochemical whole of ecosystem model. It’s overall structure is based around the Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) approach, where there is a sub-model (or module) for each of the major steps in the adaptive management cycle.

Biodiversity in Impact Assessment (IAIA) outlines principles to promote “biodiversity-inclusive” impact assessment (IA), including Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for projects, and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) for policies, plans and programmes. Guiding principles and operating principles are also presented. The operating principles provide high level guidance on how to incorporate biodiversity in impact assessments.

The Biodiversity in Impact Assessment voluntary guidelines provide an overview of the minimum knowledge required to address biodiversity in impact assessment and present guidelines for biodiversity inclusive impact assessment.

The Biodiversity Indicators for Monitoring Impacts and Conservation Actions report outlines a methodology for developing site-level indicators to monitor significant positive and negative biodiversity impacts. While targeted at oil and gas operators, the approach is applicable for a range of contexts and provides guidance on indicator delineation. It does not present a list of indicators – rather it focuses on the method of deriving indicators.

The Adaptation Support Tool is an online planning tool which shows the impact of measures against multiple urban parameters, such as created water retention capacity, peak flow reduction, heat stress reduction and storm water quality improvement. It provides key figures on performance, costs and co-benefits.The tool is part of a broader Adaptation Support Toolbox whick covers site selection, ranking of measures, adaptation package formulation (where the AST fits), creative improvement and evaluation.

Blue Green Dream (BGD) Software Solutions are a suite of tools that have been developed by the Blue Green Dream Project, along with a Blue Green Solutions Guide and modelling/methodological tools, for a range of Blue Green applications. These refer to planning, designing, constructing, operating and maintaining urban water (blue) systems and urban vegetated (green) areas to support adaptation. Together the tools comprise a package for delivering solutions:
– BGD Toolbox – Choice Support System
– BG Solution Evaluation Matrix
– BGD E-Learning
– BGD Green Facade, BIM Module
– BGD Intelligent Cistern
– BGD Integrated Monitoring System (IMS)

The Climate Adaptation Knowledge Exchange (CAKE) was founded by EcoAdapt and Island Press in July 2010, and is managed by EcoAdapt. It aims to build a shared knowledge base for managing natural and built systems in the face of rapid climate change. Just as importantly, it is intended to help build an innovative community of practice. It helps users to get beyond the limitations of their time and the unwieldy thicket of books, papers and articles by: vetting and clearly organising the best information available; building a community via an interactive online platform; creating a directory of practitioners to share knowledge and strategies; and identifying and explaining data tools and information available from other sites. It consists principally of four interlinked components: case studies; virtual library; directory; and tools.

Capnet is an online information platform with training material providing introduction to Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) as an instrument for adaptation to climate change. It also provides links to national-level resource centres that provide education, training, research and consultancy services in the field of water.

Whether you work for CARE, or with one of our partners, or for any other organisation involved with climate change and resilience, the aim of this platform is to expand and deepen your knowledge and understanding of climate change, and its causes and consequences.
Our resources build on existing knowledge and experience, and offer new skills and tools that enable participants to better tackle the complexity of the problem.
Learning resources are directly based on CARE’s 20 years of experience in resilience, community-based adaptation, climate advocacy, and in our own efforts to become a climate-smart organization.
There are three different types of learning resources available:

ONLINE COURSES are free and self-paced courses, accessible 24/7 for people within and outside CARE.

LEARNING JOURNEYS are subscription-based interactive online trainings that combine online courses, peer to peer exchanges and coaching.

TRAINER PACKS for trainers and facilitators containing editable training materials on resilience and climate change and facilitation tips.

This publication presents and highlights the experiences using Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to build climate resilience in three mountain ranges: the Andes in South America, the Himalayas in Asia, and Mt. Elgon in East Africa.

Changing Tides: Climate Adaptation Methodology for Protected Areas (CAMPA) describes an approach for developing climate adaptation measures in coastal and marine protected areas (CMPAs). It combines ecosystem and community-based approaches to adaptation and uses a participatory approach that aims to build consensus amongst stakeholders on the actions necessary to address the current and potential impacts of climate change. The methodology is described in detail and three case studies summarise lessons learned from its field-testing in six CMPAs in Colombia, Madagascar and the Philippines. It utilises a series of worksheets to simplify the process of completion and can be applied either in a detailed, data-driven process that will take some time or a shorter, quicker but less rigorous assessment to help make basic decisions about management. Case studies describe application of CAMPA in the Gorgona and Sanquianga National Protected Areas in Colombia; Nosy Hara and Ambodivahibe Marine Protected Areas in northern Madagascar and two small protected areas in the Island Garden City of Samal in the Philippines.

The Cities4Forests Toolbox offers a collection of practical tools from around the world to help cities include forests, trees, and green infrastructure in their decision-making, planning, and investments. The tools cover a range of topics, from valuing trees and forests to maximizing key benefits (such as biodiversity, health, water, and carbon), and planning and managing forest-related projects inside and outside their boundaries.

The City Biodiversity Index is a self-assessment tool for monitoring and evaluating biodiversity in cities and is the only biodiversity index for cities specifically. It was developed by experts from around the world, including academic research institutions, experienced local government officials, as well as established organisations specialising in biodiversity and ecosystem services in a city context.

CityStrength is a rapid diagnostic for resilience to a variety of shocks including climate change. It is a qualitative assessment developed with support from the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR). It ihas 5 stages and is structured around sectoral modules that cover topics within tthe city context. CityStrength first evaluates sectoral resilience and then brings together the findings to identify interlinkages that determine the resilience of the city. The end result is a prioritised list of structural and non-structural actions to enhance resilience.

The Climate Canvas, drawing inspiration from the Business Model Canvas, stands as a groundbreaking planning tool meticulously crafted for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). With its nine essential building blocks, the methodology comprehensively addresses climate change threats, supply chain intricacies, market risks, and operational challenges, facilitating strategic planning and adaptive measures. Notably, the Climate Canvas has evolved into a dynamic web application infused with AI capabilities, enhancing accessibility and providing businesses with intelligent insights to navigate the complexities of climate-related risks and opportunities.

The Climate Adaptation Toolkit for Marine and Coastal Protected Areas was created to make climate adaptation planning a simple, direct, and feasible process for marine protected area managers. It contains tools that help protected area managers evaluate the vulnerability of their sites to climate change, identify appropriate adaptation strategies and learn about those strategies through case studies, reports and other resources.

This document guides MPA practitioners through a basic climate adaptation planning process using the Climate Adaptation Toolkit. The Climate Adaptation Toolkit contains tools to help MPA practitioners evaluate the vulnerability of their sites to climate change and identify appropriate adaptation strategies. The Training Module provides a framework and training exercises to support the successful use of the Climate Adaptation Toolkit for adaptation planning in marine and coastal protected areas.

The CCAIRR approach outlined in chapter 8 of the publication constitutes of five main components: capacity assessment and strengthening; review of knowledge data and tools; rapid risk assessment; mainstreaming; and monitoring and evaluation. The publication also contains 6 case studies to demonstrate the approach.

CEDRA is a process that provides step-by-step guidance to undertaking a strategic-level risk assessment. It helps agencies working in developing countries to assess environmental risks and integrate adaptation into their development and disaster risk reduction work.