PBI-Support – Potential Blue Interventions Support tool
This tool aims to provide a clear and structured framework to guide decision-makers and practitioners through the initial stages of planning a Nature-based Solution in a marine and coastal ecosystem.
There is growing international interest in Nature-based Solutions (NBS) for addressing global societal challenges, including biodiversity loss and climate change. Implementation of blue NBS has been slow compared with urban and terrestrial NBS despite the importance of marine and coastal ecosystems for people and nature and the numerous threats they face that NBS can address. A major challenge to blue NBS implementation is the lack of an integrated framework to guide decision-makers and practitioners through the initial planning stages.
To help facilitate and improve the decision-making process for practitioners on the potential applicability of blue NBS, MaCoBioS developed PBI-Support (Potential Blue Interventions Support), a tool that uses an evidence-based approach to integrate relationships among societal challenges, ecosystem services, environmental context, and ecosystem-based management approaches (protection, restorative activities, and other management measures) to identify appropriate blue NBS. PBI-Support takes the following step-by-step approach:
PBI-Support presents a new approach to facilitate the identification of potential blue NBS by orienting intervention-selection around specific societal challenges and contextual environments. Blue NBS interventions considered by PBI-Support include marine protection (i.e., fully, highly, lightly, and minimally protected areas), restorative activities (i.e., active, passive, and partial restoration, rehabilitation of ecological function and ecosystem creation), and other management measures (i.e., implementation and enforcement of regulations). To demonstrate its use, MaCoBioS applied PBI-Support to each marine and coastal ecosystem we worked within, namely: kelp forests, mangrove forests, seagrass beds, salt marshes, maërl beds, and coral reefs.
So that you are able to apply PBI-Support to your own area of interest, we have provided the following:
- Full details of the conceptual framework that underpins PBI-Support, including concept definitions and rationale for each step of the tool is described in the scientific article ‘A conceptual framework to help choose appropriate blue Nature-based Solutions’
- A decision tree
- PBI-Support methodological guidance
What is PBI-Support?
PBI-Support is a decision-support tool that can help practitioners and decision-makers through the first step of planning management measures according to their specific needs and the ecosystems present in their area.
Why should PBI-Support be used?
PBI-Support provides an evidence-based methodological approach for identifying potential blue NBS interventions (protection, restorative activities, or other management measures) that could help address desired societal challenge(s) and be appropriate for an area. The structure of PBI-Support allows different stakeholder groups to better understand why potential intervention option(s) are given and facilitates conversations with stakeholders to identify shared objectives and actions.
When should PBI-Support be used?
PBI-Support should be used during the initial stages of planning a blue NBS to inform intervention selection.
How does PBI-Support work?
PBI-Support uses a hierarchical tree structure which consists of four steps: Challenge orientation, Ecosystem services, Environmental context, and Intervention options. This structure guides the user to answer different questions concerning objectives, ecosystems, and scale level at which an intervention could be implemented to provide a portfolio of potential intervention(s) to implement.
What is the output of PBI-Support?
The output is a portfolio of ecosystem-based management approaches that could be implemented to contribute to addressing the desired societal challenge based on specific contexts.
What do you need to use PBI-Support?
To use PBI-Support the following are required:
- Knowledge of the issue(s) or societal challenge(s) management aims to address. This will strongly depend on understanding both policy and local community concerns and should therefore be informed by stakeholder engagement;
- A clear idea of the spatial scale level at which management interventions will be, or could be, possible to implement;
- Knowledge of ecosystems present (or potentially present) in the targeted management area and their ecological condition; and
- Understanding of the vulnerability of the ecosystem(s) to stressors present in the targeted management area to natural and human stressors.
Meet the researchers:
PBI-Support has been developed as a collaborative activity across the MaCoBioS consortium but its development was led by Dr Géraldine Pérez and Dr Rémy Simide at the Institut Océanographique Paul Ricard (IOPR).