‘Achieving Triple Wins’ focused on tropical coastal areas in developing countries, particularly those at risk from sea level rise and changes in tropical cyclone intensity. It aimed to support national coastal planners and policy makers in selecting appropriate adaptation and mitigation priorities for the coastal zone that deliver triple wins i.e. identifying options that are emissions reducing, that enable people to adapt to climate change, that enhance local livelihoods. The project also identified coastal planning options that require trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation, or that create conflicts between them.

Fieldwork was carried out at coastal locations in four countries:

• Stann Creek District, Belize
• The Volta Estuary, Ghana
• Gazi Bay, Kenya
• Quang Ninh, Binh Dinh and  Ca Mau, Vietnam

Policy-makers in the four countries were engaged from the beginning to ensure that the final outputs met their needs and to achieve the highest possible uptake.

The project delivered a wide range of outputs such as policy briefs, journal articles, working papers, an online toolkit and guidance manual to assist decision-makers, as well as publishing key findings on several established online adaptation and mitigations platforms. Research were also be presented at two major international conferences.

Recent Update (2013):

Fieldwork in Ghana and Vietnam is underway, whilst fieldwork in Belize and Kenya is already complete. To date, the research has been very successful and local communities have been keen to participate.

Project team members from the University of Ghana have recently contributed to a UNEP publication on ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation, citing ‘triple wins’ research from Ghana, Kenya and Belize.

Project resources and outputs:

Project details: Achieving triple wins: identifying climate smart investment strategies for the
coastal zone
Research paper: An investigation of the evidence of benefits from climate compatible development
Briefing paper: Opportunities for triple-wins development in coastal Belize

Additional information is available on the Project page on University of Southampton Website.

Lead: Dr Emma Louise Tompkins (University of Southampton, Geography Department)

CDKN Funding: £120,000

Photo courtesy of Go Greener Oz.