Climatic Change
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02565-9
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Indicators to measure the climate change adaptation
outcomes of ecosystem-based adaptation
Camila I. Donatti 1 & Celia A. Harvey 1,2 & David Hole 1 & Steven N. Panfil 3 &Hanna Schurman 4
Received: 18 July 2018 / Accepted: 26 September 2019
# Springer Nature B.V. 2019

Abstract
Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of astrategy to help people adapt to climate change. Despite the potential of EbA to provide adaptation
benefits, there is a lack of consensus on how to measure the success of this approach. This paper
reviews the intended adaptation outcomes and indicators used by ongoing and completed EbA
projects and addresses the following questions: (a) where have EbA projects been implemented? (b)what activities have been conducted by EbA projects? (c) what adaptation outcomes are EbA
projects seeking to achieve? (d) how have the impacts of EbA projects been measured andevaluated? and (e) what is the set of indicators that can capture the diversity of adaptation outcomesachieved by EbA? To identify the adaptation outcomes provided by EbA and the indicators that
could be used to measure such outcomes, we reviewed 58 EbA projects implemented globally, andobtained recommendations from experts on what indicators should be measured. We identified 13
adaptation outcomes that could be achieved through EbA, such as reducing the loss of assetsof coastal communities due to extreme events. We identified seven indicators to monitor the successof EbA in achieving adaptation outcomes. Our review suggests that there is a strong need to better
articulate the adaptation outcomes that EbA projects seek to achieve, to use a common set of
specific indicators to track these outcomes, and to fund the monitoring of long-term EbA projects.
Keywords Climate change adaptation outcomes . Ecosystem-based adaptation . EbA
effectiveness . Monitoring and evaluation

1 Introduction
Climate change is impacting social and ecological systems, as well as the interactions between
them. The goal of the 2015 UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-01902565-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

* Camila I. Donatti
cdonatti@conservation.org
Extended author information available on the last page of the article

Climatic Change

Change) Paris Agreement is to strengthen responses to keep the global temperature rise up to 2 0C
above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 0C (United
Nations 2015). However, even if either of those targets is achieved, climate change adaptation will
still be needed, as many places have already experienced drastic impacts due to warmer
temperatures, sea level rise, and stronger and more frequent extreme events (Mimura et al., 2014).
One promising approach for climate change adaptation is ecosystem-based adaptation(UNEP 2012; World Bank 2009). Ecosystem-based adaptation (hereafter “EbA”) refers to“the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of an overall adaptation strategy to help
people adapt to the adverse effects of climate change” (CBD 2009). It includes the conservation,
restoration, and sustainable management of ecosystems, ecosystem processes, and biodiversity
to address the impacts of climate change on people’s lives and livelihoods. Examples of EbA
include the conservation of mangroves to protect people against storms, the reforestation ofhillsides to prevent landslides under extreme rainfall events, and the use of shade trees in coffee
plantations to maintain production under rising temperatures, among others (Andrade et al.
2010; Jones et al. 2012; Vignola et al. 2015). In addition to delivering adaptation outcomes,
EbA can provide economic, social, and environmental co-benefits (Moberg and Rönnbäck
2003; World Bank 2009) and contribute to climate change mitigation (Jones et al. 2012; Moriet al. 2013). It is also considered to be a cost-effective (Mohamed 2007; Emerton et al. 2009;
Munroe et al. 2012) and a low-regret option for climate adaptation (Jones et al. 2012).
Even though the protection, restoration, and management of ecosystems have been used bypeople to cope with climatic variability and change for many years, the use of the term EbA andthe attention this concept has received from policy makers, environmental and development
organizations, practitioners and donors is relatively new (see CBD 2009; Munang et al. 2013;
UNEP 2015). EbA has been promoted within the UNFCCC policy discussions and in national
and international fora since 2009 and is explicitly mentioned in the nationally determined
contributions (NDCs) of 103 countries as part of the Paris Agreement (IIED 2018).
Despite the potential of EbA to provide adaptation outcomes and the growing interest bygovernments in this approach, there is still a limited evidence base on whether many types of
EbA interventions can be considered effective in helping people adapt to climate change. This
lack of clear evidence is considered a barrier to the broadscale use of EbA (Reid 2011;
Naumann et al. 2013; Doswald et al. 2014; Milman and Jagannathan 2017). In contrast to
climate mitigation, climate change adaptation can be applied in a wide range of contexts, andhence lead to a very broad range of outcomes (e.g., reducing disaster risk, reducing foodinsecurity, reducing water scarcity driven by climate change) (Jones et al. 2012; Ford et al.
2015), encompassing both social and biophysical impacts (McKinnon and Hole 2015). The
broad range of adaptation activities and outcomes precludes the use of a single common
reference metric or indicator to measure adaptation outcomes in the same way that mitigationis measured (i.e., in terms of avoided greenhouse gases emissions) (Ford et al. 2013; Nobleet al. 2014; Ford et al. 2015; Leiter et al. 2019).
The identification of a set of candidate evaluation indicators for adaptation can be complicated.
This is because what constitutes success following an adaptation intervention changes over space
and time, as climate change impacts differ across sites, temporal and spatial scales, and affects a
series of sectors (Spearman and MacGray 2011; Leiter and Pringle 2018; Leiter et al. 2019).
Furthermore, if proposed indicators are too narrow, they may not capture all adaptation outcomes.
If the indicators are too broad, they may not be useful in tracking adaptation success. Those are not,however, problems specific to EbA, but apply to the measurement of adaptation in general (Olivier
et al. 2013).

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Nevertheless, focusing on a specific approach, such as EbA, and on indicators that can beused at the project level, may facilitate the identification of a set of indicators for tracking
adaptation outcomes. The definition of adaptation outcomes that can be achieved through
EbA, and the indicators that can be used to monitor them, are critical for providing information
on whether this approach is delivering the expected adaptation outcomes (Spearman and
MacGray 2011; McKinnon and Hole 2015; Raymond et al. 2017), as well as for understanding
which EbA interventions are performing well, hence enabling a more targeted focus of future
EbA activities. Furthermore, the identification of adaptation outcomes could help practitioners
to better plan and monitor their EbA projects and help practitioners to design EbA interventions that lead to specific adaptation outcomes. The identification of indicators could assist
funders in assessing the adaptation impacts of their EbA investments (SNIFFER 2012) andhelp policy makers evaluate progress towards countries’ adaptation goals.
This paper is an attempt to help identify and monitor the multiple adaptation
outcomes that can be achieved by EbA by compiling information on the intended
adaptation outcomes and indicators used by EbA projects. The paper aimed to answer
the following questions: (a) where have EbA projects been implemented? (b) what
activities have been conducted by EbA projects? (c) what adaptation outcomes are
EbA projects seeking to achieve? (d) how have the impacts of EbA projects beenmeasured and evaluated to date? and (e) what is the set of indicators that can capture
the broad diversity of adaptation outcomes achieved by EbA?

2 Methods
2.1 Review of EbA projects
To identify the intended adaptation outcomes of EbA projects and the indicators of adaptation“success” that the projects used to evaluate their overall goals, we reviewed completed andongoing EbA projects found in three major donor databases (UNFCCC 2015, UNEP:
http://ebaflagship.unep.org/, and GEF: https://www.thegef.org/projects?search_api_views_
fulltext=ecosystem-based+adaptation). We focused on these databases as they are the largest
existing databases for adaptation projects. Projects were included in the review if they were (a)self-identified as EbA projects (i.e., the term EbA had to be explicitly listed in the project title
or in the project description), (b) included as examples of EbA projects in a compilation of
information created by the UNFCCC (UNFCCC 2015), or (c) identified as EbA projects bydonors. Projects included in the review also had to have an implementation component (i.e.,
the project had to implement restoration, protection or management of ecosystems, ecosystemprocesses and biodiversity to help people adapt to climate change, and/or implement soft
measures to support those).
We opted to focus on EbA projects only (and not extend the review to projects that areusing other terms such as green infrastructure and ecological infrastructure) and use the criteria
above to avoid the need for authors to interpret whether or not the project was implemented toaddress the adaptation of people. Once EbA projects were identified, we then searched for
project documents in the same databases or in other online platforms and collected thefollowing information: (i) location (globally) of project implementation, (ii) EbA activities
implemented, (iii) climate hazard addressed, iv) beneficiaries of activities, v) expected climatechange adaptation outcomes, and (vi) indicators monitored.

Climatic Change

2.2 EbA activities implemented
Through our review, we identified the types of EbA activities planned or implemented by eachproject. We then summarized information about the types and locations of these activities.

2.3 Adaptation outcomes that can be achieved through EbA
We defined an adaptation outcome as the reduction in harm, the reduction in the risk of harm,or the realization of benefits to address climate variability and change (UKCIP 2004). In otherwords, the outcome is the climate change adaptation goal that is to be achieved through theimplementation of the EbA intervention. Examples of adaptation outcomes that could beachieved through EbA include a “reduction in the impacts of elevated drought severity on
water quantity delivered to humans through the conservation or restoration of cloud forests” ora “reduction in the damage to coastal communities due to an increased intensity of tropicalstorms through the restoration of coastal mangrove” (see Table 1 for more examples) (Emanuel2005; Jones et al. 2012). These project outcomes are different than project outputs, whichsimply measure the short-term success of project activities, such as the increased number offarmers implementing certain agricultural practices, or the number of hectares of mangrove
restored (see mangrove example in McKinnon and Hole 2015) (Fig. 1).
For each project, we identified the adaptation outcome(s) that the EbA intervention(s)aimed to achieve. We presented a preliminary set of adaptation outcomes identified through thereview in a workshop held on October 2016 in Arlington, VA, USA, with experts in the fieldof climate change adaptation. The purpose of the workshop was to (a) present the adaptation
outcomes found through the review of EbA projects, (b) review and identify the indicators that
could be used to measure those outcomes, and (c) discuss ways of promoting the adoption of acommon set of adaptation indicators by donors, policy makers, and practitioners for EbA
projects. Experts from the following institutions participated in the workshop: Conservation
International (CI), World Resources Institute (WRI), Arizona State University (ASU), UnitedStates Agency for International Developement (USAID), French Agricultural Research Centre
for International Development (CIRAD), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP),
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Tierra Resources, The Nature
Conservancy (TNC), Adaptation Fund, Programme Office of the International Climate Initiative (IKI), and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

2.4 Indicators used to track EbA activities implemented by EbA projects
To understand how projects are monitoring or planning to monitor the results of their EbA
activities, we compiled a list of the indicators that each project used to track progress towards
overall project goals. We further divided those indicators into output indicators and outcome
indicators to assess the proportion of projects that are using each type of indicators. Output
indicators are those that simply measure the short-term quantitative success of project activities(such as hectares of rangeland restored or number of farmers trained in certain agricultural
practices), whereas outcome indicators are those that measure the effects on ecological orsocial systems resulting from project activities (such as reduced loss of assets, or reduced
impacts of climate change on livestock and crop production, see suppl. material).
Outcome indicators collected through our review were used to prepare an initial list of
indicators that could be used to measure the adaptation outcomes of EbA. To minimize theHealthReduced impacts of climate change on water quality and quantity for human use
Safety and resource security
Reduced loss of lives in urban and non-urban communities due to extreme weather events
Reduced loss of lives in coastal communities due to extreme weather events

Restoration of swamp forest; development and restoration Reduced impacts of climate change on the incidence of vector borne diseasesof overflow areas and reed marshes
Establishment of green roofs and trees in urban areas
Reduced negative health effects (respiratory distress and heat stroke) due totemperature extremes and fires

Forest restoration, capacity building on forest restoration
Protection and restoration or high-altitude forests
Establishment of marine non-take zones; restorationof mangroves

Restoration of coral reefs; rangeland management;
Reduced impacts of climate change on ecosystems that maintain livestock production, Livelihoods
development of policies to regulate the use of forest
marine and freshwater fisheries, and tourism for profit
Reduced negative (and direct) impacts of climate change on livestock and crop
Training on agriculture practices; Implementation of
production (mainly through physical damage) for profit
agriculture practices (e.g., agroforestry and soil
conservation)
Implementation of agriculture practices (e.g., agroforestry Reduced negative impacts of climate change on ecological interactions (pest, diseases)
and soil conservation)that affect crop and livestock production for profit

Restoration of coral reef; rangeland management;
Reduced impacts of climate change on ecosystems that maintain livestock production, Food security
development of policies to regulate the use of forest
marine and freshwater fisheries, and natural products for household consumption
Training on agriculture practices; Implementation of agriculture Reduced negative (and direct) impacts of climate change on livestock and crop
practices (e.g., agroforestry and soil conservation)
production (mainly through physical damage) for household consumption
Implementation of agriculture practices
Reduced impacts of climate change on ecological interactions (pest, diseases,(e.g., agroforestry and soil conservation)
pollination) that affect crop and livestock production for household consumption

Reduced loss of assets of coastal communities and infrastructure due to extreme
Assetsweather events
Reduced loss of assets of urban and non-urban communities and infrastructure due toextreme weather events

Establishment of marine non-take zones; Restorationof mangroves
Protection and restoration or high-altitude forests

Dimensions of human wellbeing
affected by the EbA interventions

Adaptation outcomes from EbA interventions

EbA interventions

Table 1 Examples of EbA interventions (this is a non-exhaustive list) that can lead to the adaptation outcomes identified through this review and the dimensions of human wellbeing
linked to those outcomes

Climatic Change

Climatic Change

Fig. 1 Examples of EbA interventions implemented to address specific climate change impacts, and the outputs
and outcomes that can be achieved through EbA implementation

number of indicators suggested, we aimed to develop one indicator for each adaptation
outcome that we identified. Using this initial list, we opted to drop, maintain, or improvethose indicators based on the following criteria: (a) the indicators had to provide informationthat directly addressed the achievement of the adaptation outcome, (b) there had to be feasible
ways of measuring the indicators, and (c) the indicators had to be aligned, to the extent
possible, with indicators already required by donors (i.e., Global Environmental Facility,
Green Climate Fund, International Climate Initiative, United States Agency for International
Development), identified by well-known institutions to measure human health and wellbeing(i.e., World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations),
identified in peer-reviewed publications (i.e., Kahn 2003) and/or used to measure the targets of
the Sustainable Development Goals and of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.
This preliminary list was then reviewed at the expert workshop. The experts were divided insmall groups, and each group reviewed all the indicators in the list and instructed to identify
the best indicator to assess each of the adaptation outcomes. Suggestions of how indicators
could be modified, and suggestions of new indicators were captured in tables. This information
was then discussed in plenary to come up with an agreed set of indicators. The authors of thispaper resolved conflicting suggestions provided during the workshop and came up with thefinal list of suggested indicators presented here.

3 Results and discussion
3.1 Where have EbA projects been implemented?
We identified 58 EbA projects, for which information was found in 55 documents. In several
cases, more than one document was used to gather information about one project. Conversely,in other instances, a single document was used to gather information about multiple projects.
The 58 projects represent all those that were listed in the UNFCCC, UNEP, and GEF databases

Climatic Change

from January 2005 up to August 2016, for which documents were available online and EbA
interventions had been implemented. Twenty-nine projects were self-identified as EbA projects, 25 were listed as EbA in the project compilation provided by UNFCCC, and four wereidentified as EbA projects by donors.
Of the 58 projects we reviewed, fifteen were implemented in Africa, eleven in Asia, nine inSouth America, six in Central America, six in Europe, five in Oceania, four in North America,
one in the Caribbean, and one in the Middle East (Fig. 2). Four projects were implemented in
more than one geographic region and eight in more than one country. Forty-seven projects
focused on a single ecosystem, and eleven of them on more than one ecosystem. Twelve were
implemented in tropical forests, twelve in wetlands, ten in mangroves, six in coral reefs, four inrangelands, three in sand dunes, three in lagoons, two in savannahs, one in seagrasses, one intemperate forest, one in flooded forest, and one in peatlands. Eleven projects focused on
agroecosystems, three on urban areas and five on species rather than ecosystems.
Examples of project goals presented in project documents included the following: “reducethe vulnerability of the agricultural system to drought and other extreme precipitation events”;“help communities adapt to increased flooding and storm”; “increase the resilience of humanpopulation to sea level rise, and the risk of stronger, more frequent hurricanes and riverflooding as a result of climate change”; and “protect communities from erosion and flooding”(see Table 1 suppl. material).

3.2 What are the activities implemented by EbA projects?
The 58 projects we reviewed either implemented or were planning to implement a total of 109
EbA interventions. We classified these EbA interventions into two types: “EbA activities on
the ground” and “EbA-enabling activities.” Both types of interventions, “EbA activities on the
ground” and “EbA-enabling activities,” are important for moving EbA forward. Whereas theinterventions on the ground provide evidence for the provision of adaptation outcomes, theFig. 2 An overview of 58 EbA projects examined in this paper. The size of the circles corresponds to the numberof projects implemented in each region (Africa: n = 15, Asia: n = 11, South America: n = 9, Central America: n =6, Europe n = 6, Oceania: n = 5, North America: n = 4, Caribbean: n = 1; and Middle East: n = 1), while colors
indicate the specific EbA activities implemented by the different projects in each region

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EbA-enabling activities can help inform the regulations and build the social and institutional
capacities which are keys for supporting EbA interventions.
“EbA activities on the ground” included (a) the protection, restoration, and management of
ecosystems, ecosystem processes and biodiversity to help people adapt to climate change and(b) the implementation of specific agricultural practices (e.g., mulching, use of terraces, use oftrees in plantation) (Harvey et al. 2017) or use of new crop varieties to help people adapt toclimate change (see Vignola et al. 2015). “EbA-enabling activities” included (a) policies orplans for the protection, restoration and management of ecosystems, ecosystem process andbiodiversity or for the implementation of specific agricultural practices or new crop varieties tohelp people adapt to climate change; (b) awareness-raising activities regarding the protection,
restoration, and management of ecosystems, ecosystem processes and biodiversity or for the
implementation of specific agricultural practices or new crop varieties to help people adapt toclimate change; (c) training on the protection, restoration and management of ecosystems,
biodiversity, ecosystem services, and species or on the implementation of specific agricultural
practices or new crop varieties to help people adapt to climate change; and (d) the provision of
incentives for the protection, restoration, and management of ecosystems, ecosystem processes
and biodiversity or for the implementation of specific agricultural practices or new cropvarieties to help people adapt to climate change.
The 58 projects had a similar percentage of “EbA activities on the ground” (49%) and“EbA-enabling activities” (51%) planned. The most common activities were the protection,
restoration, and management of ecosystems, and the development of policies and planstargeting ecosystem management. Examples of “EbA activities on the ground” included thereforestation of degraded areas to prevent floods under extreme rainfall events (n = 29
projects), the implementation of soil conservation practices to increase the resilience of farmers
to droughts (n = 10), and the conservation of mangroves to protect coastal communities against
storms (n = 4). In all continents, except Europe and South America, most of project activities
were “EbA-enabling activities,” such as training of managers of protected areas on the benefitsof an ecosystem approach to climate change adaptation (n = 6), the development of policy
guidelines for ecological restoration (n = 3), and the provision of incentives to landowners tomanage forests to enhance their adaptation benefits (n = 3).

3.3 What adaptation outcomes are EbA projects seek to achieve?
We identified a total of 54 adaptation outcomes (Table 1 suppl. material). As not all the
projects clearly identified the adaptation outcomes that would be achieved through EbA
implementation, these had to be inferred from other information extracted from project
documents, including the climate change impact addressed, the nature of the activities
implemented and the beneficiaries of those activities (Fig. 3).
Since EbA aims to help people adapt to climate change (CBD 2009), we organized theadaptation outcomes identified into “dimensions of human wellbeing.” These dimensions werebased on a pre-existing typology of domains of human wellbeing (i.e., “economic living standards,”“material living standards,” “health and food security,” “security and safety,” “culture and spirituality,” “education,” “social relations,” “freedom of choice,” “subjective wellbeing,” and “governance and equity”; see McKinnon et al. 2016 for details). The McKinnon et al. (2016) approach wasselected because it focuses on domains of human wellbeing that are related to nature conservation.
We identified where each of the 54 adaptation outcomes fit under this preexisting list of
domains of human wellbeing. We kept the domains that were related to the adaptation outcomesClimatic Change

Fig. 3 Information collected from project documents (in green), and how this information was used to define theadaptation outcomes of EbA and the list of indicators to measure such outcomes (the complete list of outcomes
and indicators from project documents are in Table 1 of the supplementary material)

we identified (i.e., “economic living standards,” “material living standards,” “health and foodsecurity,” “security and safety”), and re-named or split some to make them more clearly
associated with the adaptation outcomes that we have identified through our review. For example,
we renamed “material living standards” as “assets” and split “health and food security” into
“health” and “food security.” We also changed the name of the typology from “domains” to“dimensions” of human wellbeing to make a distinction between the typology presented here
from the typology presented in McKinnon et al. (2016). These 54 adaptation outcomes fell into
six dimensions of human wellbeing: “assets” with 33% of the outcomes identified, “foodsecurity” (29%), “livelihoods” (14%), “safety and resource security” (14%), and “health” (10%).
As several of the outcomes were relatively like one another, we further organized them in
13 unique adaptation outcomes (Table 1). For example, “help communities adapt to increased
flooding and storms, along with the effects on their livelihoods,” “reduce the vulnerability ofcoastal communities to coastal erosion” and “reduce climate and anthropogenic driven coastline erosion” all fit into the adaptation outcome of “reducing the loss of assets of coastal
communities and infrastructure due to extreme weather events.” Our final list of adaptation
outcomes includes 3 that refer to “food security,” 3 to “livelihoods,” 3 to “safety and resource
security,” 2 to “assets,” and 2 to “health” (Table 1).
All five dimensions of human wellbeing that we used to organize the adaptation outcomes of
EbA are affected by climate change and have a clear connection with people’s adaptation to climatechange. For example, a reduction in livestock and crop production and fisheries affect food security
and livelihoods and are associated with flooding (Eckard et al. 2013), droughts (Matthews andMatthews 2003; Rockstrom 2003; Baro and Deubel 2006; Easterling et al. 2007; Albert et al. 2013;
Wetz and Yoskowitz 2013; Maystadt and Ecker 2014; Golmohammadi 2016), storms (Mainville atal. 2003), fires (Minnegal and Dwyer 2000; Rossati 2017), heatwaves (Nardone et al. 2010;
Morignat et al. 2014; Vitali et al. 2015), and sea level rise (Olsson et al. 2014; Wong et al. 2014).
The production may also be impacted by the long-term changes in terrestrial and oceanic temperature (Aggarwal 2008; Brander 2007; Lobell et al. 2011).

Climatic Change

A reduction in water quality and quantity that affects water security is associated withflooding (Kovats et al. 1999; Shimi et al. 2010; Embrey et al. 2012), heatwaves (Huber et al.
2012), and droughts (Shen et al. 2007; Benotti et al. 2010) as well as long-term changes inprecipitation (Park et al. 2010; Patz et al. 2000). Deaths in coastal and non-coastal areas are
related to hurricanes, typhoons, storms (Karim and Mimura 2008; Brecht et al. 2012; Yates
et al. 2014), and associated flooding (McGranahan et al. 2007), landslides (LeBrun 2008),
extreme heat (De Bono et al. 2004; Comrie 2007; Kaiser et al. 2007; Mora et al. 2017), andfires (Alston 2010; Stephens et al. 2014).
The coastal or hillside erosion leads to loss of assets and are associated to hurricanes,
typhoons and storms (Scott et al. 2012; Mora et al. 2018), flooding (Haile et al. 2013; Moraet al. 2017), landslides (Tsai et al. 2011), heatwaves (Dobney et al. 2010), and fires (Teague
et al. 2010; Oloruntoba 2013). Human health issues, such as the incidence of pathogen andvector borne diseases (such as malaria, dengue, leptospirosis, rift valley fever) are associatedwith flooding (Epstein 2001; Gubler et al. 2001; Mustafa and Wrathall 2011) and droughts (aspeople start to rely on unprotected sources of water and as dry conditions favors the inhalationof fungus; Calow et al. 2010; Stanke et al. 2013). Respiratory distress and heat strokes areassociated with extreme heat, heat island effects (Gronlund et al. 2014), and fires (Hurteau et al.
2014).

3.4 How EbA interventions have been measured and evaluated to date?
Of the 58 projects we reviewed, 60% included at least one indicator to track the impact(s) of
their EbA interventions. More than half (55%) of all projects only included indicators to track
project outputs (such as number of hectares restored). Thirty-six percent of all projects
presented indicators to track outcomes and 29% of all projects presented indicators to track
both outputs and outcomes. Table 1 in the supplementary material provides details on thespecific indicators used by each project to measure their outputs and/or outcomes. Indicators
used to measure adaptation outcomes varied widely across projects. The most commonlychosen indicators to measure outcomes included “change in income” (used by 27% of projects
that measured outcomes) and “change in agriculture productivity” (9%). The most common
indicators used to measure outputs included “number of hectares restored” (used by 28% ofprojects that measured outputs), “number of hectares protected” (11%), and “number of people
trained” (31%).
In our review, the majority of the EbA projects had not identified or reported on outcome
indicators. This could be due to several factors. First, the adaptation outcome to be achieved byproject activities is not clear, and so is not the outcome indicator to be measured. Second, as theoutcomes of many EbA projects that focus on ecosystem restoration will only be apparent after
several years, potentially even decades after project implementation (Holl et al. 2001; Birch et al.
2010), many projects may not have resources to do the long-term monitoring needed to document
potential adaptation outcomes. Third, many donors do not require outcome indicators to bereported from EbA projects, so there is little motivation for projects to undertake such monitoringon outcomes. Finally, the lack of a set of common indicators that can be used by adaptation
projects to report on their progress makes monitoring outcomes more difficult than in otherprojects (such as mitigation projects, where a single metric—avoided greenhouse gas
emissions—can be used) (Ford et al. 2013; Ford et al. 2015; Leiter et al. 2019). Therefore, twoof those limiting factors could be addressed by clearly stating the outcomes to be achieved, and byhaving a clearly understanding of what should be measured.

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3.5 What is the set of indicators that can capture the broad diversity of outcomesachieved by EbA?
Based on the 13 outcomes identified and indicators used by donors, institutions, and internationalframeworks, we suggest a set of seven indicators that can be used to measure the adaptation
outcomes of EbA (Table 2). We identified one indicator to address adaptation outcomes related to“assets,” one related to “food security,” one related to “livelihoods,” two related to “safety andresource security,” and two related to “health.” These indicators do not specifically address
improvements in governance, knowledge, and adaptive capacity as those are output indicatorsthat do not provide information on the achievement of adaptation outcomes. The same way thatthe suggested indicators do not focus on on-the-ground EbA implementation or on the ecologicalcomponents of the interventions, such as hectares of mangrove restored or number of trees
planted. The indicators proposed here are ultimate, “gold standard” indicators that one shouldmeasure to address whether an adaptation outcome has been achieved.
These suggested indicators are worth using, not only because they directly address theadaptation outcomes that can be achieved through EbA, but because they can be assessed throughdata that has already been collected by national or regional censuses, data that is often used tomeasure development or other goals. This is the case of indicator no. 3 proposed here (seeTable 2) as people’s income from specific activities may already be collected through time bynational or regional censuses. Furthermore, indicator no. 1 is listed within those to track the global
targets of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and indicators nos.2, 3, 4, and 5 arewithin those listed to track the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, making theindicators suggested here aligned with those that countries must report on. Likewise, some of theindicators proposed here are the same as those recommended by well-known organizations (i.e.,
World Health Organization) to measure human wellbeing (nos. 6 and 7), while others (nos. 1 and
4) by well-known institutions (i.e., GIZ) to measure adaptation goals (Hammill et al. 2014).
We acknowledge, however, that there are a few challenges in applying the indicators
proposed by this study. These include the issues of causality (Ford et al. 2013; Ford et al.
2015) (i.e., whether EbA is the factor leading to the identified outcomes), the limited data
available to assess the indicators in certain locations and the fact that adaptation outcomes taketime to become identifiable and can be subject to evolving objectives and conditions (Nobleet al. 2014). We are aware that our indicators may be more aligned to the concept of contribution
than attribution or causality. Nevertheless, when applied systematically and regularly, thesuggested indicators could offer the opportunity to build the much-needed evidence on the
successful of the intervention in achieving adaptation outcomes (as highlighted by Ford et al.
201). In addition, if projects can be sustained after the initial funding ends, and if appropriate
indicators are used to monitor long-term outcomes, those issues can be overcome to someextent. Another way to overcome some of those issues is to clearly link the EbA activities
implemented to the adaptation outcome to be achieved and articulate the assumptions taken.
Unless EbA projects do a better job of articulating clear adaptation outcomes and implementing
indicators to measure these outcomes, it will be difficult to rigorously evaluate how effective
EbA projects are in delivering adaptation benefits to human communities.
Identifying short-term indicators that can be collected through time, and indicate how theresults acquired can lead to the outcome, could also help advance the monitoring of EbA. To
facilitate that, we have also provided a list of mid-term, process-based indicators that can betracked when the “gold standard” indicators cannot, due to lack of data and/or time and resource
constraints (Table 2).

2. Prevalence of moderate or severe Extreme events:
Reduced impacts of climate change on
flooding6,
food insecurity in the population
ecosystems that maintain livestock
after extreme weather events or
production, marine and freshwater
droughts7,through time.
fisheries, and natural products forstorms8, fires9,
household consumption
heatwaves10, sea
Reduced negative (and direct)
level rise11
impacts of climate change on
Long-term changes:
livestock and crop production
terrestrial and(mainly through physical damage) for
oceanic
household consumption
temperature12 that
Reduced impacts of climate change on
canecological interactions (pest, diseases,
affect crop,pollination) that affect crop andlivestock and fish
livestock production for householdproduction
consumption

2. Questionnaire with communities • After an extreme
event or throughto get information on % of thetime (yearly basis)
population that is food insecure.
when the(Food Insecurity Experienceintervention was
Scale from FAO provides a set of
not yetquestions to ask communities on
implemented
that matter); Census data held by(baseline)
local administration• After an extreme
event or throughtime (yearlybasis), when theintervention was
implemented• After an extreme
1. % of infrastructure damaged after Extreme events:
1. Use of satellite images to takehurricanes,
event, when theextreme events (e.g., hospitals
stock of existing infrastructure,typhoons, andintervention was
schools (% of facilities damaged),
agricultural land and extent ofstorms1, flooding2,
not yethomes (% of houses damaged),ecosystems (see UNISDR 2017);
implemented
roads (% of km of roads
information on damages
landslides3,(baseline)
damaged), protected areas (% ofcollected during emergency
heatwaves4 and• After an extreme
area damaged), agricultural land
responses measures.
fires5event, when the(% of hectares of agricultureintervention
damaged), cultural and recreation
was implemented
sites (% of area damaged) after
extreme weather events.

Suggestion on
where
and when to take
the
data

Reduced loss of assets of coastal
communities and infrastructure due toextreme weather events
Reduced loss of assets of urban andnon-urban communities and infrastructure due to extreme weather
eventsExtreme events and Suggestion on how
to take the measurements
long-term changes
addressed by theinterventions

Suggested “gold standard”
indicatorsfor measuring adaptation
outcomes

Adaptation outcomes from EbA
interventions

2a. Crop, livestock andfish production forhouseholdconsumption in thegrowing/productionseason before and after
the implementationof the EbA intervention.

1a. Decreased erosion(costal or hillside)
before and after the
EbA implementation

Mid-term,
process- based
indicators

Table 2 Suggested gold-standard indicators to measure the adaptation outcomes that can be achieved through EbA, suggestions on how to take measurements, and the mid-term, process-based
indicators that can be used in mid-term evaluation of the intervention and/or in case the “gold standard” indicators cannot be tracked due to lack of data and/or time and resource constraints

Climatic Change

Suggested “gold standard”
indicatorsfor measuring adaptation
outcomes

Reduced loss of lives in urban andnon-urban communities due to extreme weather events
Reduced loss of lives in coastal
communities due to extreme weather
eventsReduced impacts of climate change onwater quality and quantity for humanuse

Extreme events:
4. % of population with access todroughts13,
enough and clean drinking water
under extreme events, or throughflooding14,
time.
heatwaves15
Long term changes:
precipitation16
5. Percentage of deaths and missing Extreme events:
hurricanes,
persons in various demographic
typhons andgroups after extreme events.
storms17 and theassociatedflooding18,
landslides19,
extreme heat20,
fires21

Suggestion on
where
and when to take
the
data

Mid-term,
process- based
indicators

3a. Income from crop,
3.Surveys with communities to get • After an extreme
livestock and fish
event or throughinformation on income from crop
production intime (yearly basis)
and/or livestock production, susthe/production season
when thetainable marine and freshwater
before and after theintervention was
fisheries, and/or tourism of
implementation of the
not yetsmall-scale, producers
EbA intervention
implemented/fisherman/ businessman per(baseline)
household• After an extreme
event or throughtime (yearlybasis), when theintervention was
implemented
4a. Water provision for
4. Use census information to get data •After an extreme
human consumption
event or throughon the number of people in a
before and after thetime (yearly basis)
location that have access to water
implementation of thewhen theyear-round and during extreme
EbA intervention.
intervention was
eventsnot yetimplemented
5a. not available
5.Use local or national statistics to(baseline)
get the number of people thathave died from extreme weather • After an extreme
event or throughevents (see UNISDR 2017)
time (yearlybasis), when theintervention was
implemented

Extreme events and Suggestion on how
to take the measurements
long-term changes
addressed by theinterventions

3. Average income from sustainable Extreme events:
Reduced impacts of climate change on
flooding6,
crop and/or livestock production,
ecosystems that maintain livestock
sustainable marine
production, marine and freshwater
droughts7, storms8,
and freshwater fisheries, and/or
fisheries, and tourism for profit
fires9, heatwaves10,
Reduced negative (and direct) impacts of
eco-tourism of small-scale persea level rise11
climate change on livestock and crophousehold after extreme weather Long-term changes:
production (mainly through physicalevents, or through time.
terrestrial anddamage) for profit
oceanic
temperature12 that
Reduced negative impacts of climate
can affectchange on ecological interactions
crop, livestock, and(pest, diseases) that affect crop andfish production
livestock production for profit

Adaptation outcomes from EbA
interventions

Table 2 (continued)

Climatic Change

Suggested “gold standard”
indicatorsfor measuring adaptation
outcomes
Extreme events and Suggestion on how
to take the measurements
long-term changes
addressed by theinterventions

Suggestion on
where
and when to take
the
data

7a. Levels of pollution in
the air before and after
the implementation of
the EbA intervention.
7a. Local air temperature
before and after the
implementation of the
EbA intervention.

6a. Prevalence of vector
species before and after
the implementation of
the EbA intervention.

Mid-term,
process- based
indicators

9 Rossati 2017, Minnegal and Dwyer 2000

8 Mainville 2003

Yoskowitz 2013

7 Easterling et al. 2007, Baro and Deubel 2006, Maystadt and Ecker 2014, Golmohammadi 2016, Albert et al. 2013, Rockstrom 2003, Matthews and Matthews 2003, Wetz and

6 Eckard et al. 2013

5 Teague et al. 2010, Oloruntoba 2013

4 Dobney et al. 2010

3 Tsai et al. 2011

2 Haile et al. 2013, Mora et al. 2018

1 Scott et al. 2012, Mora et al., 2018

Reduced impacts of climate change on
6. People’s years lost or deaths due Extreme events:
6 and 7. Use national or regional
flooding events22
the incidence of vector borne diseases
to vector borne diseases ofstatistics to calculate thevarious demographic groups
disability-adjusted life year
and drought23
within the population after(DALY) from WHO, a measureextreme weather events.
of overall disease burden,
7. People’s years lost or deaths due Extreme events:
Reduced negative health effects
expressed as the number of years • After an extreme
extreme heat24 andto vector borne diseases related to(respiratory distress and heat stroke)
lost due to ill-health, disability or
event, when the
climate change, respiratory
due to temperature extremes and fires
early death; use local or national
intervention was
fire25
distress and heat stroke, of
statistics to get the number of
not yetvarious demographic groups
people that have died from eximplemented
within the population during
treme weather events (see(baseline)
extreme weather events.
UNISDR 2017)• After an extreme
event, when theintervention was
implemented

Adaptation outcomes from EbA
interventions

Table 2 (continued)

Climatic Change25 Hurteau et al. 2014

24 Gronlund et al. 2014

23 Calow et al. 2010, Stanke et al. 201322 Gubler et al. 2001, Mustafa and Wrathall 2011, Epstein 2001

21 Alston 2010, Stephens et al. 2014

20 Mora et al. 2017, Comrie 2007, Kaiser et al. 2007, De Bono et al. 2004

19 LeBrun 200818 McGranahan et al. 2007

17 Karim and Mimura 2008, Brecht et al. 2012, Yates et al. 201416 Park et al. 2010, Patz et al. 2000

15 Huber et al. 2012

14 Kovats et al. 1999, Embrey et al. 2012, Shimi et al. 201013 Shen et al. 2007, Benotti et al. 201012 Lobell et al. 2011, Aggarwal 2008, Brander 2007

11 Olsson et al. 2014, Wong et al. 2014

10 Vitali et al. 2015, Nardone et al. 2010, Morignat et al. 2014

Climatic Change

Climatic Change

3.5.1 How suggested indicators could be applied?
We suggest that all indicators proposed here are measured both (a) prior to the implementation of
the EbA intervention (i.e., baseline), and (b) either through time (on a yearly basis) or after an
extreme weather event. Measurements of the same indicator pre- and post-intervention arenecessary to determine whether the adaptation outcomes of the EbA intervention were achieved(Ford et al. 2015). However, we believe that is up to the practitioner in charge of implementing
the EbA intervention to decide what type of adaptation action is needed, how the adaptation
actions should be implemented, and what success means in a specific context. The spatial scale of
implementation also needs to be decided by those designing and implementing the intervention.
Likewise, the specific threshold used to determine whether the adaptation outcome has beenachieved has also to be decided by the practitioner as the magnitude and type of interventions
depends on the socio-economic conditions of the target site and on the changes driven by climatethat the intervention is trying to address. Table 2 presents specific suggestions on how, where, andwhen the information related to each suggested indicator should be collected.

3.5.2 How the use of the indicators be promoted?
The seven EbA indicators suggested here can be used by governments, donors, project
managers, and policy makers to track the impacts of EbA activities in achieving adaptation
outcomes. In addition to using this common set of indicators, we suggest that project
implementers clearly state the adaptation outcomes to be achieved by EbA interventions andprepare a theory of change (see McKinnon and Hole 2015), which can be used to explicitly
link interventions to intended outcomes. Using a theory of change can improve project design,
implementation, and monitoring (see Conservation International 2012; Bours et al. 2014;
McKinnon and Hole 2015) as assumptions, short-term indicators, and outcome indicators
can be listed, allowing an adaptive project management with the adaptation outcome in mind.
For projects to make progress in measuring the adaptation outcomes achieved through EbA,
governments and donors will need to agree on and adopt a common set of indicators (such as
the set proposed here), and access and provide funds for long-term monitoring. Some donors,
such as the Green Climate Fund (e.g., GCF 2016) have recently included indicators that track
outcomes of adaptation projects (e.g., “changes in… loss of lives and economic assets due to theimpacts of climate-related disasters in the area of intervention”), indicators that are similar to
those proposed in this study. However, most donors only require output indicators to bemonitored. In addition, donors interested in supporting and implementing EbA projects needto acknowledge that monitoring systems will need to remain in place over long-time frames andprovide funds to maintaining monitoring efforts support, so the adaptation outcomes of thoseprojects can be robustly measured. We suggest that key donors of EbA initiatives (such as IKI
and GEF) also start to require that project implementers report on the adaptation outcome
indicators instead of just output indicators, and that governments do the same to track theiradaptation progress as part of the Paris Agreement. There is also a need to include a common setof adaptation indicators in national and subnational adaptation monitoring and evaluation
systems, as many currently lack indicators to monitor adaptation outcomes (Leiter 2015). These
steps would facilitate systematic and consistent reporting on the achievements of EbA projects.
The implementation of appropriate EbA interventions, the identification of how they can help
achieve adaptation outcomes, and the monitoring of these outcomes could ensure that funding is
guided towards EbA interventions that are the most successful in delivering certain adaptation

Climatic Change

outcomes (Spearman and MacGray 2011; McKinnon and Hole 2015; Raymond et al. 2017).
Identifying and focusing on successful EbA interventions could help increase funding to naturebased solutions to climate change, which receive less than 2% of global climate finance (Climate
Policy Initiative 2017) and are largely ignored by the private sector (Goldstein et al. 2018).

4 Conclusions
Ecosystem-based adaptation projects are increasingly being implemented as part of adaptation
efforts around the world, yet there is a lack of understanding on what should be measured to track
the success of these projects. Our study summarized the activities, outcomes and indicators of 58
EbA projects, including both on-the-ground efforts to manage and restore ecosystems, or
biodiversity, or the implementation of sustainable agricultural practices, and EbA-enabling
activities, such as the development of policies and plans to increase the protection and restorationof ecosystems and biodiversity. These EbA projects aim to address a variety of adaptation
outcomes to ultimately contribute to improving five dimensions of human wellbeing that are
impacted by climate change: assets, livelihoods, food security, safety and resource security andhealth. However, many did not clearly state the intended adaptation outcomes to be achieved anddid not include any indicators to monitor progress towards these outcomes.
This work, which combined an extensive review of EbA projects, recommendations frompractitioners and experts from non-governmental organizations, academia and funder agencies
and guided by theoretical literature, provides the much-needed information on a common setof indicators to monitor and evaluate EbA activities and projects. Indicators proposed throughthis study are relevant as many are used to measure development or other goals, such as the
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Sustainable Development Goals. For
EbA to be considered an important approach for climate change adaptation, there is a need totest the feasibility of the indicators proposed here and promote their use so a robust understanding of the role of EbA in providing adaptation benefits is developed. The list ofadaptation indicators proposed here is a key step towards making that happen.
Acknowledgements We would like to thank Angela Andrade, Lauretta Burke, Netra Chhetri, Jonathan Cook,
Giacomo Fedele, Carla Friedrich, Allie Goldstein, Anna Kontorov, Timo Leiter, Sarah Mack, Susi Menazza,
Daouda Ndiaye, Felix Ries, and Ali Raza Rizvi for feedback on the adaptation outcomes and indicators during aworkshop organized by Conservation International in October 2016.
Funding information This work was funded by a grant provided by Betty and Gordon Moore

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Affiliations
Camila I. Donatti 1 & Celia A. Harvey 1,2 & David Hole 1 & Steven N. Panfil 3 & Hanna
Schurman 4
1

The Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Science, Conservation International, 2011 Crystal Dr, Arlington,
VA 22202, USA

2

Monteverde Institute, Monteverde, Puntarenas, Costa Rica

3

Green Climate Fund Agency, Conservation International, 2011 Crystal Dr, Arlington, VA 22202, USA

4

McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University, 37th and O Streets NW, Washington, DC 20057,
USA