Chapter 7 - Climate change adaptation through ecological restoration

Abstract

Climate change is progressing rapidly and the impacts of climate change on people and nature are far reaching and are already being felt. Greenhouse gases (GHGs), including carbon dioxide (CO2), which cause global warming are known to be chemically highly stable and remain stagnant in the atmosphere for 50–300years and only once released into the atmosphere. Therefore, even if the whole world does not emit any GHGs, global warming is considered as a fateful thing that has to be progressed over a considerable period of time. Furthermore, while the amount of GHGs currently emitted by humankind is being sought to curb as much as possible under the IPCC-led international convention system, the absolute amount is expected to increase for a considerable time to come due to the explosive increase in emissions from the developing countries. Therefore, each region should find countermeasures to adapt and survive climate change to come in future in parallel with efforts to curb global warming by reducing GHGs emission. Based on the global carbon (C) budget, changing land use contributed significantly to increase in CO2 concentration in the air. Even in the results obtained in Korea, local climate change is closely related to land use. The difference of the atmospheric CO2 concentration collected in several areas around the world and within South Korea depended on the land use intensity of those areas. C budget by the local government in South Korea also reflected the trends. The spatial distribution of temperature in Seoul showed a close correlation with the spatial distribution of vegetation and it was also reflected on the phenology of the plants. These results indicate that land use intensity function as a critical factor causing climate change. Furthermore, these results suggest that reducing land use intensity through ecological restoration could be an important measure to adapt to climate change. In fact, stream restoration and creation of urban park in Seoul contributed to lowering the temperature and affected on the plant phenology. Although the vegetation achieved through ecological restoration is less than the physical or technical methods in terms of efficiency, it can supplement the low efficiency by displaying the multiple functions such as climate mitigation through CO2 absorption, temperature reduction, wind-proof climate control, aesthetic effects, etc. Moreover, ecological restoration can function as a real climate change adaptation measure because vegetation obtained from the ecological restoration has a long life and does not require management fees. In addition, this chapter introduces climate change adaptation policy and the legal basis adopted in Korea, the advanced cases of climate change adaptation measures, and UN decade on ecosystem restoration project as the future perspectives.