Data from: Adaptation services of floodplains and wetlands under transformational climate change

Adaptation services are the ecosystem processes and services that benefit
people by increasing their ability to adapt to change. Benefits may accrue
from existing but newly-used services where ecosystems persist, or from
novel services supplied following ecosystem transformation. Ecosystem
properties that enable persistence or transformation are important
adaptation services because they support future options. The adaptation
services approach can be applied to decisions on trade-offs between
currently valued services and benefits from maintaining future options.
For example, ecosystem functions and services of floodplains depend on
river flows. In those regions of the world where climate change
projections are for hotter, drier conditions, floods will be less frequent
and floodplains will either persist, though with modified structure and
function, or transform to terrestrial (flood-independent) ecosystems. Many
currently valued ecosystem services will reduce in supply or become
unavailable, but new options are provided by adaptation services. We
present a case study from the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia, for
operationalizing the adaptation services concept for floodplains and
wetlands. We found large changes in flow and flood regimes are likely
under a scenario of +1.6°C by 2030, even with additional water restored to
rivers under the proposed Murray-Darling Basin Plan. We predict major
changes to floodplain ecosystems, including contraction of riparian
forests and woodlands and expansion of terrestrial, drought-tolerant
vegetation communities. Examples of adaptation services under this
scenario include substitution of irrigated agriculture with dryland
cropping and floodplain grazing; mitigation of damage from rarer, extreme
floods; and increased tourism, recreational and cultural values derived
from fewer, smaller wetlands that can be maintained with environmental
flows. Management for adaptation services will require decisions on where
intervention can enable ecosystem persistence and where transformation is
inevitable. New ways of managing water that includes consideration of the
increasing importance of adaptation services requires major changes to
decision-making that better account for landscape heterogeneity and
large-scale change, rather than attempting to maintain ecosystems in fixed
states.