COMTESS – Sustainable Coastal Land Management: Trade-Offs in Ecosystem Services
Background and Goals
The coastal regions of the North Sea and Baltic Sea are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Based on suitable scenarios, the collaborative research project COMTESS will study the effects of tried-and-tested as well as innovative coastal protection measures on ecosystem services and functions in the face of the climate change. To this end, economic and sociological assessments will be performed in the coastal areas of north-west Europe and the scenarios will be evaluated in sociological and economic terms.
Objectives:
For the East Frisian North Sea coast, the project will assess perspectives for a second dike embankment and determine the feasible land use options for the area between the second and the first dike embankment. In the bodden coast areas of the Baltic Sea, dike removal projects will be investigated. The aim is to develop concrete recommendations for courses of action to promote sustainable land use in these landscapes.
The research project is divided into 9 subprojects or work packages:
0. Coordination;
1: Salt and freshwater dynamics;
2: Greenhouse gas emission and carbon sequestration;
3: Coastal vegetation: responses to environment and effects on ecosystem functions;
4: Plant-bird interactions;
5: Modelling plant-mediated ecosystem services;
6: Economic risk analysis and valuation;
7: Stakeholder processes;
8: Trade-offs in ecosystem services;
Content time
toResearch area/region
Country
- Germany
Natural spatial classification
- coasts: North Sea-/Baltic Sea coasts
- North-East German lowland
- North-West German lowland
Spatial resolution
Boddenlandschaft, Ostfriesland
Steps in the process of adaptation to climate change
Step 1: Understand and describe climate change
Approach and results
no climate scenarios created
Due to changes in land use and the soil-water budget, as predicted in the scenarios, changes in soil properties are expected, which are relevant for the emission of greenhouse gases. For the total carbon content, the contents of organic carbon and methane and nitrous oxide emissions are quantified and modeled for all ecosystem types.
Parameter (climate signals)
- Altered rainfall patterns
- Sea level rise und storm surges
Further Parameters
Tidal range, surface groundwater, water balances, soil moisture, salt water intrusion and salt water concentrations
Step 2a: Identify and assess risks - climate effects and impact
Approach and results
The accelerated sea-level rise, increasing storm surges, and increasing winter rainwater discharge are a threat to coastal areas. Today’s coastal land management is mainly based on the protection against floods by sea walls and groundwater regulation by drainage. The accelerating sea-level rise and changes in hydrological cycles are likely to restrict the efficiency of these measures in the future.
Step 3: Develop and compare measures
Measures and/or strategies
COMTESS will perform a interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary studies of three scenarios, applied to a North Sea coastal region and a Baltic Sea coastal region in Germany:
1. Scenario "water management": Construction of second coastal defence line in the hinterland instead of raising the primary sea wall and formation of freshwater polders enclosed by the primary and secondary dike lines. The primary objectives of this scenario are to restrict flooding to the polder area for limited breaches, to increase freshwater retention for use in dry periods, to prevent subsurface salt water intrusion, and to grow reeds for green energy.
2. Scenario "carbon sequestration": similar to the first scenario, but polders will be extensively covered with reed fens to yield active peat formation.
3. Scenario "trend": Dairy farming and grassland as usual. However, flood events may substantially disrupt land use and incur higher drainage costs, thus reducing the ecological and economic viability of this type of land use.
The above three scenarios are evaluated by stakeholders. Stakeholder land use preferences that can be seen to be important, but have not been taken into account, will be identified in this way.
Conflicts / synergies / sustainability
Each of the three scenarios implies the prioritization of certain ecosystem services (e.g., food production vs. water management vs. carbon sequestration) as well as synergies or trade-offs with other ecosystem services (e.g., biodiversity vs. green energy production). COMTESS will quantify and evaluate the performance of multiple ecosystem functions and services in each scenario in ecological and socio-economic terms.
Participants
Funding / Financing
Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the research programme "Sustainable Land Management"
Project management
University of Oldenburg, Institute for Biology and environmental sciences, working landscape ecology group
Cooperation/Partners
University of Oldenburg (with Soil Science, Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, Comparative Politics, Sociology, Plant-Animal Interaction);
University of Braunschweig (Hydromechanics);
University of Potsdam (hydrology and climatology, vegetation ecology and nature conservation, water and matter transport in landscapes, environmental modeling);
University of Rostock (Landscape Ecology, Hydrology);
University of Lüneburg (Sustainability Economics);
University of Hohenheim (Environmental Economics);
University of Greifswald (Sustainability Science);
University of Hildesheim (Geobotany);
Technical University of Munich (Landscape Ecology);
University of Bolzano;
National Park Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft;
Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer National Park;
National Park and Biosphere Reserve Lower Saxony Wadden Sea;
University of Aarhus (DMU), Danish National Environmental Research Institute;
Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ);
Contact
Carl-von-Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg
Institut für Biologie und Umweltwissenschaften
AG Lanschaftsökologie
Carl-von-Ossietzky-Straße 9-11
26111 Oldenburg
