Knowledge Repository

Recognizing that the value and role of nature was missing from mainstream planning and decision-making processes, Earth Economics and Resilient Melbourne took up the challenge of creating a practitioner resource for all those who are determined to take concrete steps to bridging the gap between the need to value nature, and political and financial will in policy and capital investments.

Presentation in Horizon 2020 European Dialogue and Clustering Action "Transforming cities, enhancing wellbeing: innovating with nature-based solutions" (Coruna, Spain: 16-18 May 2018) about "Benefits of ecosystem restoration"

There is extensive experience in adaptive management of exposed sandy coastlines through sand nourishment for coastal protection. However, in complex estuarine systems, coastlines are often shortened through damming estuaries to achieve desired safety levels. The Dutch Deltaworks illustrate that this approach disrupts natural sediment fluxes and harms ecosystem health, which negatively affects derived ecosystem services, such as freshwater availability and mussel and oyster farming. This heavily impacts local communities and thus requires additional maintenance and management efforts.

Ecosystems are not merely vulnerable to climate change but, if sustainably restored and protected, are a major source of human resilience. Not only is the science evidence-base for this perspective growing rapidly, but ecosystems are featuring with increasing prominence in global climate change policy.

Changes in global climate are increasingly having adverse impacts on human populations and natural systems. This has resulted in increased efforts to come up with options that can mitigate the impacts, as well as help to adapt to already occurring changes. Ecosystem based adaptation is used by a number of organisations and in many developed and developing countries as a means for climate adaptation, especially at the community level. It is also applied for disaster risk reduction.

The idea of ‘nature-based solutions’ (NBS) is now being used to reframe policy debates on biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, and the sustainable use of natural resources, among other issues. While interesting and potentially useful for those debates, it is a concept that still needs to be clearly defined; its use is not confined to discussions about ecosystem services and natural capital.

In this paper, we reflect on the implications for science, policy and practice of the recently introduced concept of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), with a focus on the European context. First, we analyse NBS in relation to similar concepts, and reflect on its relationship to sustainability as an overarching framework. From this, we derive a set of questions to be addressed and propose a general framework for how these might be addressed in NBS projects by funders, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners.