Our planet is facing a dual climate and biodiversity crisis. Around one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, and a billion people are exposed to sea-level rise. Much of this is driven by how we use land. From planting trees to restoring degraded wetlands, nature-based solutions (NbS) are growing in popularity as their social, environmental, and economic benefits are recognized. This piece explains the significance of NbS and how they can help address climate change and biodiversity issues.
What are Nature-based solutions (NbS)?
Nature-based solutions (NbS) is a catch-all term for actions that leverage nature to help us address global issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss.
Climate change is driven by the accumulation of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Human activities such as industrial manufacturing and transportation increase the concentration of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
Many NbS focus on protecting landscapes that take in and store greenhouse gases to reduce the risk of climate change, such as forest and salt marshes.
What are the societal benefits associated with NbS?
Aside from preventing climate change, NbS can also help buffer the impacts of natural disasters on communities. For example, wetlands can protect coastal communities during storms by absorbing precipitation and reducing runoff. By protecting these landscapes, communities can protect themselves against floods without needing to create flood infrastructure.
Some cities have integrated nature into their plans. The Chinese city of Shenzhen struggles with heavy downpours during the monsoon season and water scarcity during drought. By outfitting buildings with a green roof, rain gardens, and permeable pavement, the solutions captured up to 70 percent of surface runoff.
Restoring mangroves can provide coastal communities with a form of flood protection.
NbS can also help address biodiversity loss through forest restoration. The Amazon is home to over 3 million species. Restoring degraded areas would provide much-needed habitats to threatened species.
This all sounds good, but what are the barriers and trade-offs?
NbS face many barriers to implementation.
Because there’s no unified global strategy for this approach, countries and local municipalities implement NbS as they wish. This provides interested parties with flexibility. However, if these projects are implemented as uncoordinated small-scale pilots, their potential is limited, so lots of planning support is needed. For example, NbS projects such as creating green parks to promote clean air and reduce rain runoff often need lots of land. In crowded urban environments, NbS projects may compete with housing for space.
There also needs to be careful monitoring and evaluation efforts to promote the success of these projects globally. NbS projects, if not carefully planned, can harm nature and people. Because these projects can be land-intensive, conflicts may arise when there are different land-use interests at play. A tree-planting climate mitigation project could clash with agricultural or grazing land if careful analysis is not done beforehand.
NbS are also not necessarily permanent. NbS often involve protecting or restoring ecosystems, but progress can be reversed by fire or pests. For NbS aimed at climate mitigation to work, the ecosystem involved must be maintained.
What needs to be done?
We need a more standardized approach to implementing and evaluating NbS interventions. An agreed-upon framework providing guidance on designing NbS projects would maximize the potential of NbS.
Part of implementing NbS at greater levels involves writing it into international legislation. Making sure that policymakers include NbS as a policy tool within climate change agreements and development goals would mainstream it into more projects. Citizens can lobby for NbS to be implemented in community public investment projects, especially on a local level.
Funding for projects from the private sector would help. Policymakers can create policies and laws incentivizing companies to incorporate NbS into their corporate social responsibility work to help mobilize private finance.
NbS are becoming more prevalent as tools that can help us address the world’s most pressing issues. Let’s build on this momentum by leveraging nature’s power before it’s too late.