Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction and Adaptation (Eco-DRR)

UNEP has been working since many years to reduce environmental causes and consequences of disasters and conflicts and to promote environmental security and resilience to disaster and conflict risks. This work includes developing and upscaling Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction and Adaptation (Eco-DRR), an integrated approach to promoting both sustainable and resilient development. Ultimate goal is to enhance capacities of national institutions with mandates to implement development and biodiversity strategies on mainstreaming Eco-DRR in their national programmes and sectoral plans.
Between 2016 and 2021 UNEP/GRID-Geneva and UNEP have developed a new methodology called Opportunity Mapping and iterated different versions of a global interactive tool for mapping areas where ecosystems can reduce disaster risk. The methodology is crossing human exposure to natural hazards (flood, tropical cyclones, landslides and tsunami), with presence/absence of ecosystems (forests, mangroves, seagrasses, coral reefs). It allows to prioritize areas where ecosystems should be protected and areas where ecosystems should be restored. The methodology has  been applied at national level in Afghanistan  and Colombia.
In 2022 UNEP and UNEP/GRID-Geneva are collaborating to update the Opportunity Mapping tool with most recent global datasets on hazards, ecosystems and population data, applying the methodology for generating the decision matrix at the 10x10 km resolution. Another aspect of the collaboration is to tailor the Opportunity Mapping methodology to one sector and ecosystem type in Sri Lanka based on a combination of global datasets and higher resolution national datasets. A third objective of the collaboration is to implement a function that will enable national institutions  to extract any raster at national scale from global datasets.
MapX is used for the publication of the geospatial datasets and is embedded into a wider disaster and risk reduction platform, using the MapX software development kit (SDK).