Financing and Enabling Community Ecosystem-based Adaptation for Water and Energy Security

Colombia and Costa Rica depend heavily on hydropower for electricity generation. Climate change and land degradation threaten access to this low-carbon electricity supply by disrupting water flows and clogging reservoirs with eroded soil and debris. Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), an approach that harnesses biodiversity and ecosystem services to reduce vulnerability and build resilience of human communities to climate change, is a potentially cost-effective and socio-environmentally positive way to stabilize the hydrology that underpins hydropower operations. Interventions such as watershed restoration and reforestation, maintaining or restoring vegetation along rivers, and integrating trees with crops or livestock on farms, can boost ecosystem services while enhancing the livelihoods and water security of upstream communities.

This project worked with key stakeholders to raise knowledge on the benefits of EbA for the hydropower sector and upstream communities. The project partners worked with the national governments and other key stakeholders including hydropower companies, research institutions, and subnational actors to support both countries’ efforts in advancing EbA pilot sites. Specifically, in Costa Rica, the project steered efforts to develop a project concept note to access additional funding for an EbA pilot project and collaborated with the International Institute for Sustainable Development to quantify the costs and benefits of implementing EbA in the Reventazón watershed. In Colombia, the project worked to develop lessons learned and recommendations to help the country achieve its NDC (Nationally Determined Contribution) target to have at least one EbA pilot site in a watershed that has relevance for the hydropower sector.

Project Achievements

• Convened a binational steering committee for the project among Colombian and Costa Rican officials to exchanges lessons learned on EbA for the hydropower sector in each country, exchanged project updates, success and challenges.
• Collaborated with the International Institute for Sustainable Development to develop a publication that quantified the costs and benefits of investing in EbA in the Reventazón River basin in Costa Rica.
• Worked with the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center to develop a project proposal for the Adaptation Fund to raise additional funds for an EbA pilot project’s implementation.
• Developed a document that highlights the opportunities to deploy EbA in hydropower sites, including experiences from Colombia and Costa Rica and lessons learned to be used by Colombia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy to advance their efforts in achieving the country’s NDC objective to have an EbA pilot site for the hydropower sector.

Project Status

Completed 30 November 2024