Plausible alternative futures of Island mangroves in the Asia-Pacific: Scenario-based analysis and quantification of mangrove ecosystem services in costal hazard mitigation (APNIS)

Mangrove ecosystem services are increasingly being recognized as pivotal to build nature-based resistance to climate change and hydrometeorological hazards in coastal areas.  Yet, dearth of reliable quantitative information on future extent and availability of such services serve as major obstacle for optimal coastal landscape planning, particularly in fragile island environment.  To address future uncertainties in mangrove ecosystem services, scenario-based quantitative assessment of mangrove ecosystem remains imperative for evidence-led decision-making and establishing strong science-policy interface for proactive policy making.  Under this backdrop, this project intends to develop spatially explicit, exploratory scenarios (2050) for mangroves and assess the future trade-offs in vital mangrove ecosystem services under varied environment pathways (e.g., with ‘no’, ‘moderate’ and ‘strong’ policy intervention) and environmental drivers such as sea-level rise.  It will specifically focus on five study sites, namely (1) North Andaman Islands (India), (2) Ishigaki Islands (Japan), (3) Oriental Mindoro (The Philippines), (4) Tamsui River Estuary (Taiwan) and (5) Viti Levu Island (Fiji).  By developing spatially explicit scenarios, the project will make quantitative, spatio-temporal evaluation of vital mangrove ecosystem services that contributes to mitigate coastal hazards (e.g. carbon sequestration, costal vulnerability, soil retention) through appropriate bio-physical models.

Objectives:

The objectives of the project are as follows:

• The primary objective of this project is to develop spatially-explicit, exploratory, mangrove forests-scale scenarios for island mangroves (for 2050) from five representative study sites from Asia-Pacific, considering the locally relevant drivers and pressures, both from anthropogenic and environmental origin (e.g. sea level rise, etc.)
• Secondly, the study will assess, based on the scenarios, likely changes in vital mangrove ecosystem services in relation to climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Particularly, the project will look into the future availability of mangrove ecosystem services specifically to carbon sequestration, coastal vulnerability reduction and soil conservation using appropriate bio-physical models.
• Lastly, the project will conduct a scenario analysis to evaluate the synergies and trade-offs in vital mangrove ecosystem services, thereby will make crucial inputs in developing a spatially-explicit policy guidelines for making best possible use of mangrove ecosystem services through optimum landscape planning.