Resilient lagoons? Climate change, sustainability and adaptation

Lagoons are found at low-lying coastlines around the globe (Fig. one) and their associated wetlands are important, dynamic coastal environments. Ensuring the sustainability of the world’s lagoons is vital for communities, ecosystems and economies. They support highly productive ecosystems and provide critical ecosystem services, societal benefits and myriad fundamental, valuable resources that are vital for the wellbeing and livelihoods of coastal communities. Yet the sustainability of lagoons and communities who rely on them are under increasing pressure from a complex set of interconnected issues, including climate change, sea-level rise, pollution, poor waste management, population growth and policy approaches favouring top-down governance to the exclusion of local knowledges and priorities (Convention on wetlands 2021). This Changing World article summarises the latest research on lagoons through the examples of Muni Lagoon, Ghana and Lagos Lagoon, Nigeria (Fig. one) as well as the interdisciplinary dialogues emerging through the GCRF funded Resilient Lagoon Network https://lagoonnetwork.org/ which is seeking to challenge top-down management approaches by prioritising participatory approaches valuing local knowledges and in which coastal communities are central to resilient lagoon governance.