Marine and coastal ecosystems provide essential ecosystem services to human societies, supporting food security and livelihoods, tourism and recreation, coastal protection, wastewater treatment and climate change mitigation.
The Mediterranean region is facing increasing climate change pressures, including sea-level rise, rising sea and air temperatures, more frequent and intense marine heatwaves and extreme climatic events such as floods, storms and droughts, as well as coastal erosion. These pressures, combined with other anthropogenic threats, are affecting marine and coastal ecosystems, reducing the benefits they provide and increasing risks to human societies and infrastructure.
Nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation
Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are actions that address societal challenges through natural processes and ecosystems, while providing benefits for biodiversity and supporting the delivery of ecosystem services. They include actions related to the protection and conservation, restoration and sustainable management of ecosystems.
When appropriately planned and implemented, NbS can contribute to preventing and reducing climate change impacts while enhancing the resilience of marine and coastal ecosystems and the societies that depend on them.
Assessing nature-based solutions in the Mediterranean
This new publication assesses Nature-based Solutions to prevent and reduce Climate Change Impacts on Marine and Coastal Ecosystems (NbS/CCI/CME) and enhance ecosystem resilience in the Mediterranean region.
The assessment identifies several barriers to the wider implementation of NbS/CCI/CME across the Mediterranean. These include:
- a lack of common understanding, terminology and implementation processes, which can hamper institutional and policy uptake;
- insufficient data and ecological knowledge to support informed decision-making;
- challenges in stakeholder engagement;
- institutional constraints; and
- reliance on short- or medium-term project funding, which can limit the ability to assess the long-term effectiveness of NbS initiatives.
A practical framework and recommendations
To support the wider integration of NbS/CCI/CME in the Mediterranean region, the publication presents the findings of the assessment, a practical step-by-step framework for assessing NbS, examples of best practices and common challenges, and recommendations for integrating nature-based solutions into climate change adaptation strategies.
The publication also includes outcomes from the regional training workshop on Nature-based Solutions to reduce climate change impacts on coastal and marine ecosystems, held in Gökova, Türkiye, on 9 December 2025. The workshop was organised back-to-back with the workshop on climate change adaptation strategies and is documented in Appendix 2 of the publication.