Climate Change Vulnerability Analysis at the Local Level: Lessons Learnt from Brazil on How to Conduct Participative Processes

Abstract

A well-performed vulnerability assessment (VA) is key to identify entry points for adaptation to climate change. However, performing a VA is often considered a highly complex enterprise process, especially in the context of uncertainty. This is mainly the case when embedded into participative planning procedures, which demand to create a simple methodology to allow all kinds of participants to contribute, regardless of their education and prior knowledge about climate change. However, simplification should not impair the quality of results. This article describes two VAs performed at local level in the context of a bilateral Brazilian/German cooperation project, aiming to make spatial planning and management tools of municipalities and protected areas climate-proof, considering in particular ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation. Specifically, VAs have been performed for the management plan of the Area for Environmental Protection Cananéia-Iguape-Peruíbe, in São Paulo, and in the urban planning context of Duque de Caxias, part of the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro. While comparing both methodologies used, lessons learnt are drawn also with respect to achieved results.

Introduction

Climate change adaptation is increasingly becoming a pressing issue. That is also mainly the case regarding the application of various methodologies to address climate change on a local level, adjusting methodological guidelines to local realities. Major challenges have been especially identified in the field of vulnerability assessments, which generally do not follow a rigid format, but require methodological adjustments to address local needs. From this starting point, and in order to show methodological alternatives to asses vulnerability, this article aims to document and discuss lessons learnt from two different approaches used in the context of the Biodiversity and Climate Change in the Atlantic Forest Project, drawing lessons learnt and enabling readers to reproduce the experiences in their own working context.

The Biodiversity and Climate Change in the Atlantic Forest Project (from now on: Mata Atlântica Project) occurs in the context of the Brazilian-German cooperation for sustainable development, in the context of the International Climate Iniciative (ICI) of the German Federal Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection, Construction and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), implemented by the Brazilian Ministry of Environment (MMA). With technical assistance by the German technical cooperation agency Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the project aims to contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change via the implementation of ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) measures in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil.

The project’s regional focus is on three regions of protected area mosaics, specifically the Mosaic of the Extreme South of Bahia (Mosaico de Áreas Protegidas do Extremo Sul da Bahia—MAPES), the Mosaic of Central Fluminense (Mosaico Central Fluminense—MCF) in Rio de Janeiro, and the Mosaic Lagamar, in southern São Paulo and coastal Paraná States (see also Fig. 17.1).

Fig. 17.1

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Atlantic Forest within Brazil and three focal regions of the Mata Atlântica Project.

The project aims to consider climate change impacts and ecosystem-based adaptation in different land-use planning tools. The proposition of doing so starts from the assumption that considering climate change makes these tools more resilient on the long term.

In order to do so, a compulsory step is to perform a vulnerability assessment. As vulnerability assessments today still do not follow international or national standards, the project offensively explores a variety of different approaches to perform them, adapting existing methodologies to specific local contexts.

To build up technical expertise, the project trained between 2012 and 2014 45 EbA-experts of the three focus regions and the National level in methods and tools to mainstream the approach into land-use planning. These trained experts were accompanied during their first implementation experiences by the project team, which provided technical and methodological input and ensured the systematization of lessons learnt.

This article specifically builds on two experiences on vulnerability assessments for land-use planning instruments. Both assessments followed different approaches and delivered different forms of results. An in-depth analysis will reveal strengths and weaknesses of both approaches and point out lessons learnt for future vulnerability assessments.

Pursuing to get a common understanding of terminology, ecosystem-based adaptation to clime change is an approach to adapt to climate change. Unlike classical approaches, it focuses less on creating engineering solutions, but it pursues to strengthen ecosystem services, to create assets that allow the society to better cope with climate change. Following the most common definition of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, ecosystem services are “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. These include provisioning services such as food and water; regulating services such as regulation of floods, drought, land degradation, and disease; supporting services such as soil formation and nutrient cycling; and cultural services such as recreational, spiritual, religious and other nonmaterial benefits” (Alcamo et al. 2003: V).

These services can be strengthened by conserving, restoring, or sustainably managing ecosystems. Examples of ecosystem-based adaptation measures are the restoration of riparian forests to better deal with increasing floods, the conservation of forests to allow for a better infiltration of rainwater in a scenario of decreasing rainfall, or the sustainable management of agricultural land by installing agroforestry, to decrease the impact of future heavy rains.

Due to its positive impacts not only to reduce vulnerability to climate change, but also to increase or ensure the provision of ecosystem-services in a non-climate-change-scenario, EbA measures are often defined as being non-regret measures. However, in order to be considered EbA, adaptation strategies need, among others, to be based beforehand on climate information and scenarios, followed by a vulnerability assessment.

Vulnerability assessments are detailed studies to assess drivers for vulnerability to climate change, and needed to determine the role of ecosystems to reduce them. Vulnerability itself is not measurable as an absolute number, such as precipitation or wind speed, but it “expresses the complex interaction of different factors that determine a system’s susceptibility to the impacts of climate change. However, there is no fixed rule defining which factors to consider, nor of the methods used to quantify them. This is why we talk about ‘assessing’ rather than ‘measuring’ vulnerability” (Fritzsche et al. 2014, p. 26).

In general, vulnerability assessments still follow IPCC’s 2007 terminology. This means that vulnerability “is the degree to which a system is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes. Vulnerability is a function of the character, magnitude, and rate of climate change and variation to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity” (Pachauri and Reisiger 2007). Figure 17.2 shows the scheme of our understanding of the vulnerability concept.

Fig. 17.2

Source Adapted from IPCC (2007)

Functions of the vulnerability concept.

While seeming—at first sight—to be quite standardized, vulnerability assessments still are a major challenge worldwide, just because its exact application depends on a variety of variables. The first and most common defiance is the lack of available data. Here, the main challenge is to get quantitative data, both regarding climate projections, and regarding biophysical and socioeconomic variables. In addition, the available resources—human, time, and financial—make a large difference when deciding on how to design the process, also regarding on how to include the participation of the population and experts. Finally, it is key to understand how the generated information will be used.

All this aspects play a major role when designing the exact approach. However, the latter mentioned is the starting point, as it determines both the quality of information needed to be generated in order to be useful, as well as the set-up in which it will be generated. This is due to the fact that vulnerability assessments are usually integrated into larger planning processes, and therefore need to be adapted to their methodology and included into their timeline.

The following two case studies describe the methodologies adopted on Brazil’s coastal area that—although following completely different approaches—produced substantial results to identify vulnerabilities to climate change.

Methodology: The Case of the Area of Environmental Protection of Cananéia-Iguape-Peruíbe

Following Brazil’s system of Protected Areas (SNUC), Environmental Protected Areas (APA) are part of the group of protected areas for sustainable use. The APA of Cananéia-Iguape-Peruíbe (APA CIP), located in the Mosaic Lagamar (see Fig. 17.3), was created in 1984 and enlarged in 1985. It encompasses six municipalities (Cananéia, Iguape, Ilha Comprida, Itariri, Miracatu and Peruíbe), with a total area of 234.000 ha. Located in Southeast São Paulo State, it is integrally located in the Atlantic Forest biome, with predominance of mangroves, sandbank vegetation and dense ombrophylous forests (Fluminhan Filho et al. 2015).

Fig. 17.3

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Location of APA CIP in Southern Coastal São Paulo State.

According to SNUC, all protected areas need to have a management plan, which needs to be developed with a participative approach. The APA CIP’s preliminary management plan was prepared in 1996, which included a first draft for zoning. In 2014, Brazil’s Environmental Conservation Institute ICMBIO, with financing of the GEF-Facility project “Manguezais do Brasil” and with backup by UNDP, started the design of APA CIP’s first complete management plan, which was finally completed and approved in early 2016.

In this context, the Mata Atlântica Project invited APA CIP’s management staff to attend a training course on how to consider EbA into land-use planning in 2014. A further participation on a training-of-trainers course resulted in the process design on how to consider EbA into the planning cycle for APA CIP’s management plan.

In 2015, the consultancy hired to design the management plan and to conduct the process invited for a first meeting to present the stages that would guide the process. This allowed to identify entry points to assess vulnerability and identify EbA measures within the regular planning processes. These topics were assisted by technicians of the Mata Atlântica Project, and by EbA experts trained by the project, coming from the APA CIP management team, ICMBio´s training centre ACADEBIO, local universities, and NGOs.

During the planning process, it was established that vulnerability to climate change should be considered during (I) thematic diagnosis meetings, (II) a specific workshop to discuss climate change and EbA, and (III) by including a specific chapter in the management plan on climate change and EbA.

During the thematic diagnosis meetings, the topic of climate change was introduced in a ludic and palatable way, pursuing not to divert attention of participants from the main topics of the meeting. Upon arriving, participants were asked to name perceived changes in climate and to identify geographical hotspots on a pin board. By these means, participants should start an individual and group reflection on the role that climate change already plays in their lives. Additional interactive questions during the meetings, including explanation of concepts with well-known tales, instigated participants to reveal their perception on climate change issues and to deliver a first diagnosis about how climate change already affects the local population’s life.

However, the strong concentration of topics and activities in meetings with a duration of three to four hours caused exhaustion both for the participants as for the consulting team. Due to this reason, the last meetings only included climate change issues regarding the welcoming activity, and invited all participants to speak in-depth about this topic on the specific workshop.

For this topic-specific full-day workshop, held in May 2015, the main challenge was a strong lack of information regarding climate projections specific for the region. Therefore, it was decided to mainly base the workshop on people’s perception, also considering that this is the main driver to increase acceptance on climate-related adaptation measures. Additionally, the workshop had a strong focus on capacity building, intending to create a common knowledge of understanding of climate change, ecosystem services and related terminologies. Although the invitation was open, mainly community leaders, researchers, representatives of the federal, state, and municipal administration, and members of APA CIP’s management team participated on the event.

Following this logical path, the first thing that participants were invited to point out was, again, their perception of climate change signals. People were asked to signalize with coloured dots on a map of the APA CIP where they had already perceived specific climate signals.

The next step was a formal short presentation on what climate change is. Additionally, people were shown the short video “Como as Mudanças do Clima mudarão nossas vidas em 2050” (“How climate change will change our lives in 2050”; available via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QoZ8hh8-Qg). Additionally, a presentation was held on climate change with a focus on the APA CIP region.

Following the terminology of climate change, the next step was to identify in maps areas where biophysical and socioeconomic impacts had been perceived. Again, coloured dots were used to mark the respective areas into maps (see Fig. 17.4). Subsequently, all three maps generated so far—regarding climate signals, biophysical, and socioeconomic impacts—were compared, pursuing to identify logical chains.

Fig. 17.4

Source Own picture

Coloured dots indicating socioeconomic impacts of climate change in the APA CIP during the workshop.

Having identified hotspots for climate change signals and impacts, the next step focussed on sensitizing participants on the concept of ecosystem-based adaptation. People were invited to reflect about the concept of ecosystem services and how these services influence their way of life on pin boards.

This introduction to the concept was key to allow participants to think about measures within the management plan to ensure their way of life. Moderators actively asked which nexus the measures had with identified climate change impacts and classified into four categories: conservation, restoration, sustainable use, and others. Finally, participants were invited to propose areas where selected EbA measures should be established within the context of the management plan.

A final plenary session allowed for reflection about the selected measures and how they could be considered in further steps. Participants and the consulting team reinforced the view that a special action programme on climate change should be included into the management plan, with a focus on ecosystem-based adaptation (Fluminhan Filho et al. 2015).

This programme was designed in the following weeks by the consulting team, with inputs by the technical team of the Mata Atlântica Project. Although following a similar model than the other programmes of the management plan, it was established that the climate change programme’s actions should be transversal, in order to be considered in all activities and actions of the plan.

Methodology: The Case of the City of Duque de Caxias

According to Brazil’s Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE 2014), the City of Duque de Caxias has almost 900,000 inhabitants, with an area of 467,62 Km². Located at the Guanabara Bay (see Fig. 17.5) and within the region of the Central Fluminense Mosaic, it is part of the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro. From a geographical point of view, it displays a large variety, with a topography ranging between 0 and over 1000 m above sea level and over 50% of its area still under natural land cover.

Fig. 17.5

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Location of Duque de Caxias within the Guanabara Bay watershed.

From an economical point of view, Duque de Caxias has Rio de Janeiro State’s second highest GDP, mainly based on petrochemical and logistical activities. Although having large parts of the population working in other cities, the city still experiences strong population growth, what translates into increasing illegal urban expansion. This fact already leads to a number of challenges, like a reduction of natural land cover, insufficient water provision and an increasing percentage of population vulnerable to climate change. An increasing number of flood events and progressive lack of potable water is a mayor challenge for the city administration.

Also considering these pressures, the Municipal Secretary for Planning, Habitation, and Urbanism (SMPHU) decided to implement a climate change vulnerability and ecosystem service assessment, as part of a larger land use appraisement for the municipality. This appraisement shall be the basis to establish a municipal Land Use and Land Occupation Law (Lei de Uso e Ocupação do Solo) and review the Municipal Master Plan (Plano Diretor) in 2016 and 2017.

After making a first meeting in April 2015 for a preliminary needs assessment, two staffers of the SMPHU were trained by the Mata Atlântica Project as EbA-Experts. In a follow-up coaching event, a detailed work plan to consider climate change and ecosystem services into municipal planning was jointly designed (see Fig. 17.6). This design started from the assumption that most secretariats within the municipal administration did not communicate with one another and that climate change could be a topic to discuss and tackle common challenges jointly.

Fig. 17.6

Source Own picture

Work plan for Duque de Caxias produced during the coaching event.

From this starting point, the first large event was a 2-day workshop in June 2015 with representatives of eight municipal secretaries and other related institutions. One goal was to sensitize and train technicians on the importance of considering climate change and ecosystems in their daily work. This again also took place via capacity building, creating a common understanding on climate change, ecosystems and related terminology. Step two focused on identifying key sectors that are at risk due to climate change. This occurred by group work, where participants working in small groups first identified on maps of the municipal area where climate change already is happening, and then discussed how this eventually could (or already is) influencing different key sectors, mirroring the participatory approach used on the APA CIP management plan. Results were presented in the plenary and validated in open discussions. Finally, the results were considered to convincing that the workshop’s participants decided to create an inter-secretary working group on climate change issues, pursuing to create capacities and to strengthen the dialogue on this issue. In order to make this working group’s activities efficient, small groups worked on a diagnosis of the municipality’s most pressing issues (“capacity development”, “create a positive agenda”, “communication”) to be addressed to make climate change adaptation a priority issue in Duque de Caxias. These issues were defined as the thematic guidelines for the working group’s further activities.

With a consultancy on ecosystem services mapping occurring afterwards, it was only in November 2015 that two workshops on participative vulnerability assessments took place in Duque de Caxias, pursuing to create a deeper understanding on how climate change creates vulnerability in the municipality. Following the inter-secretary working group’s results, a first workshop to assess vulnerability to climate change took the whole area of the municipality into account, while a second workshop focused on the especially vulnerable district of Xerém.

Both workshops had as main goals (I) to understand the terminology of vulnerability, (II) to carry out a vulnerability assessment, focusing on key interest sectors and climate change impacts, and (III) to identify adaptation measures (with focus on EbA) to be considered in future municipal territorial planning.

Pursuing to flatten the level of information and knowledge, the first session of the workshops focused on recounting previous steps. A spotlight here was held on the already identified high-risk sectors and likely potential climate change impacts in Duque de Caxias. Furthermore, the photo documentation of previous works had been handed over to participants prior to the workshops via e-mail.

In order to achieve the workshops’ first goal, a moderator introduced to participants via action learning on a pin board on the methodology of vulnerability. This step proved to be essential, as the concepts presented here accompanied the participants during the whole working day.

Following the terminology of vulnerability, participants were then invited to identify in plenary key climate change signals affecting the city’s territory. This information was then complemented and validated by the facilitating team, making use of publicly available quantitative climate data.

The inter-secretary workshop in May had identified four key sectors suffering potential climate change impacts for the municipality as a whole: “Irregular housing and adjacent areas suffering from floods”, “Devaluation of areas increasingly suffering from floods and heat waves”, “Loss and reduction of biodiversity (mangroves, forests)”, and an “Increasing number of industries exposed to climate hazards.” For the Xerém district, these impacts and sectors were “Climate Change impacting on industries, commerce, and their access ways”, a “Reduction of water intake for different uses”, “Mobility being affected by climate change and irregular occupation of land”, and “Floods impacting on irregular land occupation.”

Taking these potential climate change impacts and the before identified climate signals as starting points, participants—divided into small working groups—were invited to identify intermediate climate impacts that explained the link between the climate signals and the main climate impact. By this means, a first climate causal signal chain was created.

Continuing on the footsteps of the vulnerability terminology, participants were then asked to identify sensitivities that, jointly with climate signals, result in climate impacts. As a next step, they were invited to explore reasons leading to these sensitivities, what lead to a cause-effect relationship chain. These sensitivities were then mapped with coloured dots and markers on high-resolution maps of the respective area.

Having this panorama clear, working groups were invited to identify already existing adaptation capacity for identified exposure, sensitivity and potential climate change impacts.

Once finalizing the assessments, participants’ final task consisted in pointing out possible adaptation measures to climate change, contributing to reduce exposure and sensitivity, or to increase the adaptive capacity. In this context, the moderating team actively motivated them to think on measures to conserve, restore or make sustainable use of ecosystems, following the EbA principles.

After each one of the mentioned steps, results (for an example, see Fig. 17.7) were presented to the plenary, seeking to have a transparent process, validated by all participants.

Fig. 17.7

Source Own picture

Example for result of vulnerability assessment in the district of Xerém/Duque de Caxias. Blue cards represent potential primary impacts, orange exposure, pink sensitivity, green adaptation capacity, and yellow suggested adaptation measures.

As final steps to conclude the vulnerability assessment in Duque de Caxias, the results were digitalized and handed over to all municipal secretaries as a photo documentation, together with step-by-step documentation of the used information and methodologies, pursuing by these means a high acceptance of their results. In addition, areas indicated by workshop participants as being sensitive to climate change were visited on-site, both to validate the result, and to log in the GPS coordinates, pursuing to have high-quality data for land-use planning.

Results and Discussion

This article described different methodologies used in different contexts. However, the number of two case studies only is also quite limited and can under no circumstances considered an overarching analysis. Despite this natural limitation, a more in-depth analysis allows to draw lessons learnt that mainly can contribute to draw pathways for practitioners’ own application.

Both case studies presented in this article followed different approaches. As pointed out before, this has less methodological, but more reasons resulting on the set-up in which the vulnerability assessments were conducted: while in the case of APA CIP the suggested approach had to fit into an already existing planning process design, the main challenge in Duque de Caxias consisted in stakeholder engagement. From this point of view, also results and lessons learnt from both case studies are quite different.

The decision to consider climate change adaptation and EbA into APA CIP’s management plan turned out to be a correct decision, giving additional consistency to the plan itself.

The perception of participants during the thematic meetings showed that it is common sense that climate change is already happening in the region. In addition, the information gained during these opportunities was a valuable input for the important workshop focusing on climate change and pursuing to deliver inputs to assess vulnerability. However, the climate-related sessions during these meetings took so much time that the consulting team decided by hindsight to reduce climate-related inputs to a minimum, in order to allocate enough time for other topics, as important to the management plan.

The workshop focusing on climate change vulnerability resulted to be essential to gain sufficient information to base adaptation decisions on a stable knowledge foundation. The intense participation of key stakeholders, which were empowered by receiving information and knowledge during the whole day increased acceptance that the outcomes were valuable.

However, the lack of high-value quantitative climate change information on the region was a major challenge, which could be partly overcome by the participants’ perception on already happening climate effects, which confirmed available data.

In addition, the lack of formal knowledge of participants forced the moderators to include several inputs to leverage the understanding on climate change and ecosystem services. This additional effort proved to be effective, but also significantly cost time.

This lack of time also partially explains why this vulnerability assessment cannot be considered as being complete: both the existence of adaptation capacity and sensitivity was not fully and systematically explored, as it was the case in Duque de Caxias. Especially a thorough exploration for—eventually not even spatial—sensitivity to climate change and its drivers that eventually could be tackled with EbA-measures would have offered more consistency to the planning procedure.

On the spatial side, the decision to focus mainly on the area of the APA CIP to perform the vulnerability assessment proved not to be ideal. Both a sectoral approach and opening the analysis to areas outside the APA CIP would, on the one hand, opened the view for more challenges that are outside the governance of the natural area. By only analysing reasons for impact, the sole reason for sensitivity located outside de APA CIP were areas where agriculture was being performed in non-sustainable way, increasing the likelihood for erosion. On the other hand, having a larger geographical or sectoral scope would have shown the value of the area to deliver ecosystem services to tackle climate change impacts outside its dominion, increasing the acceptance for the protected area itself being considered an EbA measure.

From a process-oriented point of view, it would also have proven a promising strategy to engage in an early stage ICMBIO’s central authority for management plans. Being this entity responsible to release the management plan, it decided to cut off substantial parts related to climate change from the plan’s final version. Prior contact to sensitize about its meaning and opportunities would probably even have allowed for upscaling of these experiences within ICMBIO.

Also in the case of Duque de Caxias, the consideration of climate change and ecosystem services proved to be fundamental. It was not only important in order to understand how climate change already is and might impact on the territory and different sectors, therefore allowing to identify measures to reduce vulnerabilities. But it also proved an excellent topic to bring together experts and visions from different stakeholders to work together on common challenges. Additionally, the approach also served to reveal the natural richness of the municipality, contrasting with the vulnerability caused by its geographic location and territorial characteristics.

In this context, a systematic approach of human capacity development and identification of vulnerability proved to be right. The interest on the topic of climate change was confirmed by a relatively low fluctuation of participants, and results of workshops were not contested neither by participants nor by actors from outside.

On the other side, the difficulty to make key actors join the process can still be seen as a challenge. Especially the absence of the Secretary of Environment opened inquiries about the right approach for decisive stakeholders. However, this challenge is not restricted to this particular process and surely needs to be addressed via a broader stakeholder engagement strategy.

For both vulnerability assessments, having a capacity development strategy accompanying the process proved to be essential. It not only proved to be the key for increasing the quality of peoples’ participation, but also to assure their ownership, while contributing to the results’ sustainability. An especially positive effect was shown by the ludic—and not presentation-centred—training approach, tailored to participants’ needs, what eased the learning and contributed to motivate the groups.

Conclusion

Both vulnerability assessments recounted in this article proved that it is a challenge to design appropriate methodologies for different contexts.

Lessons learnt show that key success factors are related to political will and to find the right momentum. The political will is necessary because the inclusion of a vulnerability assessment into a planning process requires additional financial, human, and time resources. To sensitize decision makers beforehand about the importance of considering climate change is therefore an important step. Sadly, climate change impacts already taking place now have proven to be an effective sensitization method. Therefore, sensitized decision makers mostly understand the positive cost-benefit ratio of considering climate change in planning processes. Further—quantitative—studies on this issue would, however, deliver additional arguments for decision makers.

In this context, it also proved that designing together with technicians on when to consider vulnerability to climate change in planning processes and with which intensity lowers the stress of planning teams. Planning teams usually work quite goal and process oriented, and a vulnerability assessment is still being considered a “nice to have”, rather than a “must have”. Lowering the conflict by introducing vulnerability to climate change as a cross-cutting, rather than an additional topic, increased the likelihood for it to be considered a topic of high-value. In this same line, it is not possible to say if it is more recommendable to speak about climate change and to assess vulnerability in a one-topic event, or to discuss it step-by-step together with other topics: it depends on the context and peoples’ preferences.

However, lessons-learnt showed that the described ludic methodologies to focus people’s experiences to determine climate change vulnerability, linked with capacity-building, revealed insights that quantitative desk-studies would not have produced. Additionally, instant validation within the plenary ensured a broad acceptance of the results, encouraging decision-makers to consider them in planning.

Finally, the language used to perform vulnerability assessments showed to be key to increase acceptance and participation on participative processes. A language that is as least technical as possible allows for all people to participate and usually does not reduce the quality of the final product.

However, the availability of high-quality quantitative data, including climate modelling, simplifies the process of the vulnerability assessment and increases the acceptance of the result among decision makers, technicians, and the population. While both vulnerability assessments described in this article had to be elaborated with little quantitative information, future assessments in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest will already start with half the work done, thanks to newly finished modelling of potential biophysical impacts of climate change, produced in the context of the Biodiversity and Climate Change in the Atlantic Forest Project.

Nevertheless, a final lesson learnt is the necessity to gain sufficient political backup from decision makers before and during the process to consider climate change adaptation into planning, pursuing both to ensure a good participation of key stakeholders and to endorse the results of vulnerability assessments.

The mentioned lessons learnt will be taken into account when performing additional vulnerability assessments in the project context. This will be necessary to revise a number of management plans of protected areas and to formulate Municipal Plans to Conserve and Restore the Mata Atlântica (Planos Municipais de Conservação e Recuperação da Mata Atlântica—PMMA) within the project area. By these means, these plans will be the framework to formulate and implement ecosystem-based adaptation measures. Also, already performed lessons learnt are a valuable input to start the implementation of Brazil’s National Climate Change Adaptation Plan (Plano Nacional de Adaptação—PNA), which has been released in May 2016 and calls for urgent climate adaptation action.