Ecosystem-based adaptation as a concept of adapting to the adverse effects of climate change has become a popular approach that enjoys a good reputation. However, the evidence base for it is rather thin. This thesis sets out to explore the challenges and limitations linked to projects that engage in the concept, in order to estimate the potential threat that may lie in the ignorance of them. Timescales of projects related to the concept shall be the second major focus of this thesis as it has not been sufficiently examined yet by the literature. Empirical material has been gathered and analyzed in the form of interviews with people who have been and are currently working in projects related to ecosystem-based adaptation. The results allow recommendations for the implementation of future projects, as lessons learned were identified.

Ecosystem services are essential for human climate adaptation. As climate change is a direct driver of change for ecosystem service provisioning, it is of importance to care for our ecosystems to be able to cope with future challenges. Local governance has a central role in climate adaptation due to its responsibility in physical planning. To be able to plan for changes driven by climate change, a flexible, adaptive strategy is necessary. Ecosystem-based Adaptation, EbA, can provide this flexibility to an overall adaptation strategy. In this case study, the potential of EbA to help Nature-based Tourism, NbT, to adapt to a changing climate was spatially mapped to be a useful part of the basis for local physical planning. The mapping includes areas of biodiversity, water infrastructure and features that provide resilience to climate change. The results show that there are areas with potential for EbA that can address adverse effects of climate change for the NbT. These spatial mapped areas provide an instant overview of the key areas to consider when planning for climate adaptation. These mapped areas are also combined with a qualitative assessment of the potential for EbA. By providing decision-makers with information on where and how ecosystem services can assist local climate adaptation, decisions that support both the future of humanity and ecosystems are enabled. However, to reach enforcement of EbA, the knowledge has to be included in binding documents such as detail plans.

Unexpected changes occurring in complex and dynamic domains render supporting systems unsuited to the new conditions. Examples of such domains include business ecosystems, digital service ecosystems, manufacturing, transport, and city modelling. These are regarded as ecosystem domains. Multi-agent systems are seen as an appropriate technology for their support, yet they lack the required ability to adapt to unexpected changes. The research presented in this thesis aims to create a multi-agent system based in-silico model endowed with the capability of adaptation to unexpected changes occurring in ecosystem domains. The approach taken consists of applying adaptation properties of complex adaptive systems, such as natural ecosystems, to multi-agent systems to create one which can cope with unexpected changes. A dynamic agent-based ecosystem model called DAEM is formalised by combining characteristics of natural ecosystem and principles of adaptive multi-agent systems. A set of experiments is presented using a DAEM prototype to demonstrate its resilience to unexpected changes in a hypothetical ecosystem. A comparison is made against a simulated typical solution for showing how DAEM is more resilient to unexpected changes than the typical approach. This supports the claim of this thesis that DAEM represents a significant contribution to knowledge. A software embodiment of DAEM to drive adaptation in ecosystem domains is presented and placed in an execution context evaluated by two practical examples of ecosystem domains. These show how DAEM suggests interactions to the supporting system of the execution context, and incorporates taken decisions into the ecosystem regarding interactions with other individuals. This supports the claim that the DAEM software embodiment is suitable for providing adaptation support in ecosystem domains, thus representing another significant contribution of this thesis. The contributions to knowledge of this thesis are then a) a formal model of a dynamic agent-based ecosystem called DAEM; and b) a software embodiment of DAEM, called DAEM layer, to support adaptation in ecosystem domains. Future work includes further tests to analyse patterns and make estimations in existing ecosystems, among others.

Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) champions the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services to help people adapt to the adverse effects of climate change. Moreover, EbA presents an exemplary opportunity to confer social-ecological resilience. But how can such initiatives be effectively implemented and managed towards a resilient supply of key ecosystem services? Through case study research on community-led water sow and harvest (WSH) – a traditional form of EbA in the Peruvian Andes – this thesis explores social-ecological conditions for self-organization, collaboration and learning for the adoption of the practice, as well as the emergence of adaptive co-management (ACM) and its potential for building local water resilience. Qualitative data collected from interviews and participatory observations were thematically coded, and analysed for self-organization using the Multilevel Nested Framework (Ostrom 2009) and subsequently for social learning using ACM literature. This study found that self-organization for the adoption of WSH was primarily influenced by strong leadership, the importance of the water resource to the community, and users bonded by formal institutions of collective choice and social norms rooted in Andean culture. In addition, four types of collaboration and five learning activities were found to conform a social learning process and result in social learning outcomes for enhanced adaptive capacity, indicating the emergence of ACM around community-led WSH. By supporting knowledge exchange through a social network, ACM allows the practice to be scaled-up to create enabling legislation, scaled-out to increase the number of communities adopting WSH, and scaleddeep to support cultural internalization of the practice. Such scaling can potentially enable community-led WSH to build local water resilience through: 1) implementation at the landscape level to match the scale of ecological processes that sustain water ecosystem services; and 2) continuous management over time to support adaptive forms of water resource governance in the face of change and uncertainty.

A key challenge for sustainable urban development is to deal with the effects of climate change. To approach this issue, ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA), i.e. the use of ecosystem services for climate adaptation, has been promoted by both scholars and practitioners. In this context, the thesis addresses two research questions: how EbA is included in strategic climate adaptation planning and how EbA is implemented in practice. To tackle these topics, the study uses a multiple case study design, where the process from strategic planning to its implementation is investigated in two Northern European cities: Copenhagen and Malmö. To collect in-depth data, qualitative methods were used: a document analysis and semi-structured interviews with planning officials were conducted. The findings of the study show that there is a high degree of awareness of the different EbA measures, their potential role to address climate change effects and their co-benefits in climate adaptation plans. However, the practical implementation of the plans was executed only at a project-based scale to address some climate change impacts rather than holistically and on a regional level. The main EbA measure that was used was the expansion and transformation of public green space. The thesis concludes that a more comprehensive approach concerning the use of EbA is needed and further mainstreaming is highly required. / En viktig utmaning för hållbar stadsutveckling är att adressera effekterna av de stundande klimatförändringar. För att ta sig an denna fråga har användningen av ekosystembaserad anpassning (EbA), dvs. användningen av ekosystemtjänster för klimatanpassning, främjats av både forskare och utövare. I detta sammanhang behandlar studien två forskningsfrågor: hur EbA ingår i strategisk klimatanpassningsplanering och hur EbA implementeras i praktiken. Studien innehåller en fallstudie- design, där processen från strategisk planering till dess genomförande undersöks i två nordeuropeiska städer: Köpenhamn och Malmö. För att samla in data användes två kvalitativa metoder: en dokumentanalys och semistrukturerade intervjuer med tjänstepersoner på kommuner. Resultaten från studien visar att det finns en hög grad av medvetenhet om de olika EbA åtgärderna, deras potentiella roll för att hantera klimatförändringseffekter och deras synergier i klimatanpassningsplaner. Det praktiska genomförandet av planerna utfördes endast i en projektbaserad skala för att ta med vissa klimatförändringseffekter snarare än på ett holistiskt vis och på en större regional nivå. Den viktigaste EbA åtgärden som användes var utbyggnaden eller omvandlingen av de offentliga grönytorna. Sammanfattningsvis har studien visat på att det finns behov av ett mer heltäckande tillvägagångssätt och ytterligare integrering beträffande användandet av EbA krävs.

Increasingly unpredictable, extreme and erratic rainfall with higher temperatures threatens to undermine the adaptive capacity of food systems and ecological resilience of smallholder landscapes. Despite growing concern, land managers still lack quantitative techniques to collect empirical data about the potential impact of climatic variability and change. This thesis aims to assess how ecosystem services and function and how this links with biodiversity and human wellbeing in smallholder agro-ecosystems in a changing climate. To this end, rather than relying on scenarios or probabilistic modelling, space was used as a proxy for time to compare states in disparate climatic conditions. Furthermore, an integrated methodological framework to assess ecosystem services at the field and landscape level was developed and operationalised, the results of which can be modelled with measures of wellbeing. Various multidisciplinary analytical tools were utilised, including ecological and socio-economic surveys, biological assessments, participatory open enquiry, and documenting ethnobotanical knowledge. The study was located within monsoon rice farms in the Terai Plains of Nepal, and dry season vegetable farms in Northern Ghana. Sites were selected that are climatically and culturally diverse to enable comparative analysis, with application to broad areas of adaptive planning. The linkages that bring about biophysical and human changes are complex and operate through social, political, economic and demographic drivers, making attribution extremely challenging. Nevertheless, it was demonstrated that within hotter and drier conditions in Ghana long-tongued pollinators and granivores, important for decomposition processes and pollination services, are more abundant in farms. Results further indicated that in cooler and drier conditions in Nepal, the taxonomic diversity of indigenous and close relative plant species growing in and around farms, important for the provisioning of ecosystem services, decreases. All other things equal, in both Nepal and Ghana findings indicate that overall human wellbeing may be adversely effected in hotter conditions, with a potentially significantly lower yields, fewer months of the year in which food is available, higher exposure to natural hazards and crop loss, unemployment, and psychological anxiety. Yet, surveys indicate smallholders continue to maintain a fair diversity of species in and around farms, which may allow them to secure basic necessities from provisioning ecosystem services. Moreover, farmers may employ adaptive strategies such as pooling labour and food sharing more frequently, and may have greater access to communication, technology, and infrastructure. Novel methodological and empirical contributions of this research offer predictive insights that could inform innovations in climate-smart agricultural practice and planning.