Knowledge Repository

This recording concerns the second presentation about "Using Co-creation to Stimulate Transition for Implementing NBS: Shared Governance, Spatial Challenges and Environmental Policies", presented by Israa Mahmoud during the fourth ThinkNature webinar at 5/6/2019 about "Governance Models for NBS: Policies, Strategies and Decision Making Mechanisms". This webinar invited policy makers, decision makers, end users and authorities from all levels (states, regions, municipalities, etc.) to discover the aspect of governance as to NBS and learn about the policy and decision making framework concerning NBS. In the context of this webinar, the above-mentioned issues were presented by major NBS experts and the attendees had the opportunity to participate in short surveys and pose their own questions regarding the presented issues to the speakers.

Actions: Carbon Sequestration, Coastal Resilience, Enhancing Ecosystems' Insurance Value, Sustainable use of Matter & Energy, Urban Regeneration, Watershed Management & Ecosystem Restoration, Well-being in Urban Areas

Goals: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, Restoring Degraded Ecosystems Using NbS, Risk Management and Resilience, Sustainable Urbanisation in cities

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Regions:

This recording concerns the first presentation about "The Sustainable Land Use (SLU) and Nature Based Solution (NBS) Urban Agenda Partnership: Brief overview and focus on Action 6 on better regulation", presented by Claudia de Luca during the fourth ThinkNature webinar at 5/6/2019 about "Governance Models for NBS: Policies, Strategies and Decision Making Mechanisms". This webinar invited policy makers, decision makers, end users and authorities from all levels (states, regions, municipalities, etc.) to discover the aspect of governance as to NBS and learn about the policy and decision making framework concerning NBS. In the context of this webinar, the above-mentioned issues were presented by major NBS experts and the attendees had the opportunity to participate in short surveys and pose their own questions regarding the presented issues to the speakers.

Actions: Carbon Sequestration, Coastal Resilience, Enhancing Ecosystems' Insurance Value, Sustainable use of Matter & Energy, Urban Regeneration, Well-being in Urban Areas

Goals: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, Risk Management and Resilience, Sustainable Urbanisation in cities

Impacts:

Regions:

This document concerns the second presentation about "Using Co-creation to Stimulate Transition for Implementing NBS: Shared Governance, Spatial Challenges and Environmental Policies", presented by Israa Mahmoud during the fourth ThinkNature webinar at 5/6/2019 about "Governance Models for NBS: Policies, Strategies and Decision Making Mechanisms". This webinar invited policy makers, decision makers, end users and authorities from all levels (states, regions, municipalities, etc.) to discover the aspect of governance as to NBS and learn about the policy and decision making framework concerning NBS. In the context of this webinar, the above-mentioned issues were presented by major NBS experts and the attendees had the opportunity to participate in short surveys and pose their own questions regarding the presented issues to the speakers.

File: tn_webinar4_presentation2.pdf

Actions: Carbon Sequestration, Coastal Resilience, Enhancing Ecosystems' Insurance Value, Sustainable use of Matter & Energy, Urban Regeneration, Watershed Management & Ecosystem Restoration, Well-being in Urban Areas

Goals: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, Restoring Degraded Ecosystems Using NbS, Risk Management and Resilience, Sustainable Urbanisation in cities

Impacts:

Regions:

This document concerns the first presentation about "The Sustainable Land Use (SLU) and Nature Based Solution (NBS) Urban Agenda Partnership: Brief overview and focus on Action 6 on better regulation", presented by Claudia de Luca during the fourth ThinkNature webinar at 5/6/2019 about "Governance Models for NBS: Policies, Strategies and Decision Making Mechanisms". This webinar invited policy makers, decision makers, end users and authorities from all levels (states, regions, municipalities, etc.) to discover the aspect of governance as to NBS and learn about the policy and decision making framework concerning NBS. In the context of this webinar, the above-mentioned issues were presented by major NBS experts and the attendees had the opportunity to participate in short surveys and pose their own questions regarding the presented issues to the speakers.

File: tn_webinar4_presentation1.pdf

Actions: Carbon Sequestration, Coastal Resilience, Enhancing Ecosystems' Insurance Value, Sustainable use of Matter & Energy, Urban Regeneration, Well-being in Urban Areas

Goals: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, Risk Management and Resilience, Sustainable Urbanisation in cities

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Regions:

This recording concerns the discussion and Q&A section during the fourth ThinkNature webinar at 5/6/2019 about "Governance Models for NBS: Policies, Strategies and Decision Making Mechanisms". This webinar invited policy makers, decision makers, end users and authorities from all levels (states, regions, municipalities, etc.) to discover the aspect of governance as to NBS and learn about the policy and decision making framework concerning NBS. In the context of this webinar, the above-mentioned issues were presented by major NBS experts and the attendees had the opportunity to participate in short surveys and pose their own questions regarding the presented issues to the speakers.

Actions: Carbon Sequestration, Coastal Resilience, Enhancing Ecosystems' Insurance Value, Sustainable use of Matter & Energy, Urban Regeneration, Watershed Management & Ecosystem Restoration, Well-being in Urban Areas

Goals: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, Restoring Degraded Ecosystems Using NbS, Risk Management and Resilience, Sustainable Urbanisation in cities

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Regions:

This Handbook has been developed in the framework of the ThinkNature project. Its main objective is to gather and promote state-of-the-art knowledge regarding Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), comprising a comprehensive guide to all relevant actors. To this end, each aspect of NBS is investigated, from project development to financing and policy making, and is presented in a concise and comprehensive way, in order to be easily understandable. Regarding the EU agenda around NBS, this Handbook contributes to:
• Expanding the knowledge base about the effectiveness of NBS, • Supporting the implementation of NBS through enhancing their replicability and upscaling, • Utilising the knowledge and experience of stakeholders, and • Proposing a comprehensive methodological approach for innovation.

File: thinknature_handbook_final_print_0.pdf

Actions: Carbon Sequestration, Coastal Resilience, Enhancing Ecosystems' Insurance Value, Sustainable use of Matter & Energy, Urban Regeneration, Watershed Management & Ecosystem Restoration, Well-being in Urban Areas

Goals: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, Restoring Degraded Ecosystems Using NbS, Risk Management and Resilience, Sustainable Urbanisation in cities

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Regions: International, Mediterranean (EU), Northern temperate (EU), Oceanic Climatic (EU), Temperate Continental (EU)

This article was published at the Project Repository Journal (Oct/ Nov 2019 – Volume 3, pages 56-59) [link]. The article summarizes all the achievements of the ThinkNature project with links on the exploitable results and the deliverables that can be found on the ThinkNature Platform.

File: edma_prj3_thinknature_v2.pdf

Actions: Carbon Sequestration, Coastal Resilience, Enhancing Ecosystems' Insurance Value, Sustainable use of Matter & Energy, Urban Regeneration, Watershed Management & Ecosystem Restoration, Well-being in Urban Areas

Goals: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, Restoring Degraded Ecosystems Using NbS, Risk Management and Resilience, Sustainable Urbanisation in cities

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Nature-based solutions (NBS) are solutions that can protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems in urban and rural areas, while providing many benefits and co-benefits including stormwater mitigation, biodiversity enhancement, and human well-being. As such, NBS have the potential to alleviate many of the environmental, social, and economic issues that we face today. Grey infrastructure, such as lined trenches and catch basins, pipes, and concrete dikes are frequently used for stormwater management and flood protection, but they do not provide many of the co-benefits that are common with NBS. Grey infrastructure is designed to quickly collect and remove rainwater, whereas NBS keep rainwater where it falls, and where it can be used by the environment. Many stakeholders lack knowledge of the capabilities and benefits of NBS, and as a result, they continue to rely on grey infrastructure in their projects. When information is made available on the benefits and how they can be quantitatively measured, it is hoped that NBS will be promoted to a mainstream infrastructure choice. A valuable way to quantify and highlight the benefits of NBS is by using an evaluation framework. There are several evaluation frameworks that qualitatively assess the potential benefits of possible NBS, however there is a need for quantitative frameworks that can assess the actual benefits (or performance) of implemented (or existing) NBS. This article presents an evaluation framework that aims to quantify the benefits and co-benefits of implemented NBS. The framework involves five main steps: (1) selection of NBS benefit categories, (2) selection of NBS indicators, (3) calculation of indicator values, (4) calculation of NBS grade, and (5) recommendations. The outcome of the framework is a single numerical grade that reflects the benefit functioning for an NBS site and values for each performance indicator. This information may be used by decision makers to determine their budget allocations to expand or construct a new NBS site, to update maintenance plans that will improve the benefits of that site, to set up programs to monitor the NBS benefits and co-benefits over time, and to schedule labour and resources for other NBS projects. The framework was tested and validated on a case study of NBS in Thailand. Through conversations with stakeholders and knowledge of the case study area, relevant categories and indicators were chosen. Using data and information obtained through various means, values for each indicator and the overall NBS grade were calculated. The values revealed which benefits were pronounced, those that were weak, and where improvements were required.

Link: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/23/6788/htm

File: sustainability-11-06788-v3.pdf

Actions: Well-being in Urban Areas

Goals: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, Risk Management and Resilience, Sustainable Urbanisation in cities

Impacts: Benefits, Biodiversity, Human well-being, Indicators/criteria

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The proliferation of vegetated, or green roofs, warrant a revisit of the terminology used in order to efficiently, and without confusion, convey information among scientists, policy makers and practitioners. A Web of Science and Google Scholar search (from 1996 to 2018) showed a steady increase in green roof articles, reaching close to 300 per year in WOS and ca. 2500 in Google Scholar, with approximately 10–20%, and up to 40 % of all articles using the terms extensive and/or intensive, especially in recent years. We evaluated the use of these terms, including ‘green roof’, and ‘intensive and extensive roof’, found that they are used in confusing ways, and provide compelling evidence that there is a need for revising the terminology. Acknowledging that most, if not all, vegetated roofs are multifunctional, we propose a new classification system based on the roof’s primary function(s) and vegetation, such as “stormwater meadow roof”, “biodiversity meadow roof”, “biodiversity forest roof”, or even “multifunctional meadow roof”. This new terminological sphere is not meant to be rigid, but should be allowed to evolve so that useful combinations survive the scrutiny of academia and practitioners, while less useful ones go extinct. A clear and standardized terminology will serve to avoid confusion, allow for generalizations and aid in the development of this rapidly-expanding field.

Actions: Urban Regeneration

Ecosystem Services: Urban

Goals: Sustainable Urbanisation in cities

Impacts: Urbanisation

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The European Dredging Association (EuDA) participated in a Horizon 2020 project sponsored by the European Union. The project named ThinkNature had as objective to promote the application of nature-based solutions (NBS). NBS have obvious advantages but have not been embraced at wider scale. In this article, the authors reflect as to why NBS are not mainstream solutions, why it is necessary to promote the concept and whether there are barriers that hinder wide-scale application. In this article the authors describe how relevant the topic is to the dredging community.

File: tn_terra-et-aqua-158-_nbs.pdf

Actions: Carbon Sequestration, Coastal Resilience, Enhancing Ecosystems' Insurance Value, Sustainable use of Matter & Energy, Urban Regeneration, Watershed Management & Ecosystem Restoration, Well-being in Urban Areas

Goals: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, Restoring Degraded Ecosystems Using NbS, Risk Management and Resilience, Sustainable Urbanisation in cities

Impacts:

Regions: