Dune-based Nature-based Solutions in Ireland: unlocking their full potential to build coastal resilience

Ireland has made a commitment under the newly developed Marine Strategy Framework Directive Programme of Measures to develop Nature-based Solutions to conserve and restore estuarine, coastal and marine habitats. Existing evidence show that a large number of coastal communities, environmental NGO’s, EU-funded research programmes and local government bodies are already engaged with the transition towards NbS to defend or conserve coastlines with varying degrees of success. This research first provides an overview of over fifty NbS projects in Ireland in different coastal habitats (dunes; machair; saltmarshes; seagrass meadows; oyster reefs; kelp forests) being led by different organizations with different motivations, services delivered, biodiversity value, beneficiaries, and resources. We then present multiple dune-based NbS case studies along urban and rural coastlines to illustrate how these projects are successfully building coastal resilience. It is obvious to NbS practitioners that many of these projects are not sustainable in the long-term and overly rely on the selfless work of volunteer groups who continuously face institutional (governance; legal responsibility; stakeholder forum; tourism) and technical barriers (climate adaptation; funding; environmental designation; lexicon of climate resilience and sustainability; erosion and flooding control; seasonal tourism) in their attempts to build resilience to climate change and anthropogenic pressures. To unlock the full potential of dune-based NbS, Ireland urgently requires (1) new government policies and planning structures to organize the planning, implementation and maintenance of NbS, including a coastal community engagement mechanism to coordinate working partnerships and funding between local government bodies, coastal communities, and landowners at every stage in the process; (2) appropriate and expert staffing resources (e.g., climate and biodiversity officers) within local government authorities and the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the state agency responsible for Ireland’s nature conservation; (3) a standardized NbS indicator framework to measure the ‘impact’ of NbS projects; and (4) a valid financial mechanism to facilitate significant future investment in NbS as ‘new assets’ and biodiversity credits (measurability, monitoring, verification, and certification of the NbS process).