Nature-based Solutions

Nature-based solutions (NbS) refer to approaches that harness the power of ecosystems and natural processes to address environmental and societal challenges. Read here to learn more.

These solutions leverage the inherent resilience and functionality of ecosystems to provide sustainable and cost-effective alternatives to conventional, human-engineered solutions.

Nature-based solutions are employed across various sectors to enhance biodiversity, mitigate climate change, and promote sustainable development.

Integrating nature-based solutions into policy frameworks, business practices, and community initiatives can contribute to sustainable development and the achievement of global environmental goals.

Nature-based Solutions

Nature-based Solutions leverage nature and the power of healthy ecosystems to protect people, optimize infrastructure, and safeguard a stable and biodiverse future.

• Nature-based Solutions are actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural and modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously benefiting people and nature.
• Nature-based Solutions address societal challenges through the protection, sustainable management, and restoration of both natural and modified ecosystems, benefiting both biodiversity and human well-being.

Nature-based Solutions are underpinned by benefits that flow from healthy ecosystems.

They target major challenges like climate change, disaster risk reduction, food and water security, biodiversity loss, and human health, and are critical to sustainable economic development.

Key characteristics and examples of nature-based solutions include:

Agriculture and soil biodiversity

Agriculture is a vital human activity that deeply impacts, but also deeply relies on nature.

Agriculture is expected to cover an increasing world food, feed, fiber, and fuel demand for 8.5 billion people in 2030.

The shift to more sustainable production systems and agricultural practices is therefore critical to conserve nature and achieve more sustainable and resilient societies.

• Agroforestry: Integrating trees and shrubs into agricultural landscapes to enhance biodiversity, improve soil health, and provide additional income for farmers.
• Cover Cropping: Planting cover crops during off-seasons to protect soil, reduce erosion, and enhance nutrient cycling.

Drivers towards a sustainable agriculture:

• Prioritise soil and landscape biodiversity for food and nature
• Wide adoption of agro-ecological approaches for managing agricultural landscapes
• Establish targets and indicators at national and global levels for sustainable agriculture
• Reward farmers for ecosystem services provided through sustainable farming
• Promote change throughout the global food system to enhance sustainability
• Build consensus on environmental stewardship in the agricultural sector

Read: Agroforestry; Green agriculture; Urban agriculture

Disaster risk reduction

Climate change is increasing the frequency, intensity, and magnitude of hazards, impacting the vulnerability of human communities and changing exposure patterns.

• Environmental degradation contributes to growing disaster risk and threatens to exceed the humanitarian sector’s capacity to respond in the coming decades.
• Nature-based solutions can help communities prepare for, cope with, and recover from disasters.

Ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) and ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) are related approaches that can be thought of as a continuum, from mitigating large-scale disasters, such as tsunamis and landslides, to adapting to different climatic conditions.

• Implementing controlled burns and other forest management techniques to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
• Maintaining natural floodplains to absorb and slow floodwaters, reduces the impact of flooding events.

Ecosystem restoration

The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) challenges everyone to massively scale up restoration efforts that breathe new life into our degraded ecosystems.

• Any degraded ecosystem including agricultural areas, savannah, wetlands, protected wildlife reserves, fisheries, managed plantations, riversides, coastal areas, and many others may offer opportunities for improvement through restoration.
• Ecosystem restoration could focus on re-establishing ecological integrity on a hillside or a seagrass bed to the large-scale landscape restoration of a plateau or mountain range.

The tangible benefits of the Decade can be viewed through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as substantial Nature-based Solutions for climate change mitigation and adaptation, water and food security, poverty reduction, economic growth, and biodiversity conservation.

• Afforestation and Reforestation: Planting trees and restoring forests to sequester carbon dioxide and enhance biodiversity.
• Wetland Restoration: Protecting and restoring wetlands to absorb and store carbon, reduce flood risks, and support biodiversity.
• Mangrove Restoration: Planting and restoring mangrove ecosystems to protect coastlines from storm surges, enhance biodiversity, and sequester carbon.
• Living Shorelines: Using natural materials like plants and oyster reefs to stabilize shorelines and prevent erosion.

Nature-based Solutions for Climate

Climate change poses a fundamental threat to nature, species, and people. However, nature also provides key solutions for both carbon storage and building climate resilience – if the global community takes steps to protect, restore, and better manage our natural resources.

• The Paris Climate Agreement commits to keep global warming below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.
• The actions of the international community between now and 2030 will determine whether we can collectively slow warming enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
• Above the 1.5 °C limit, the risks of extreme weather and collapsing ecosystems grow.
• The latest IPCC report demonstrated that nature-based solutions such as reducing the destruction of forests and other ecosystems, restoring them, and improving the management of working lands, such as farms — are among the top five most effective strategies for mitigating carbon emissions by 2030.

Nature-based solutions can address climate change in three ways:

1. Decrease greenhouse gas emissions related to deforestation and land use
2. Capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
3. Enhance resilience of ecosystems, and as such support societies to adapt to climate hazards such as flooding, sea-level rise, and more frequent and intense droughts, floods, heatwaves, and wildfires.

Nature-based Solutions for Cities

Rapid urbanization is placing mounting pressure on the ecosphere but carries promises of renewal – an opportunity to reimagine the built environment and, by extension, our very civilization. Nature-based solutions can help cities to realize this opportunity.

• Examples from around the world attest that nature-based solutions can cost-effectively and elegantly enhance the sustainability, resilience, and liveability of cities.
• Trees mop up pollutants, dampen noise, and cool the air; wetlands and rain gardens reduce flood risk; mangroves and marshes buffer storms; greenspaces facilitate exercise, spiritual nourishment, and community interaction; and greenways support active travel.
• Green Roofs and Walls: Installing vegetation on building structures to enhance energy efficiency, reduce urban heat islands, and improve air quality.
• Permeable Pavements: Using materials that allow water to pass through, reducing surface runoff and promoting groundwater recharge.

Global initiatives

• Enhancing Nature-based Solutions for an Accelerated Climate Transformation (ENACT): The ENACT initiative coordinates global efforts to address climate change, land and ecosystem degradation, and biodiversity loss through Nature-based Solutions (NbS).
• UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration: The United Nations has declared 2021-2030 as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to accelerate efforts in restoring ecosystems for environmental and human well-being.
• The Bonn Challenge: A global effort to restore 350 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2030.

Indian initiatives

• Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats and Tangible Income (MISHTI): The MISHTI scheme is a government-led initiative aimed at increasing the mangrove cover along the coastline and on saltpan lands.
• Amrit Dharohar: The goal of Amrit Dharohar is ‘to promote unique conservation values of Ramsar Sites’.
• India launched its first National Coalition platform for Urban nature-based solutions (NbS) under the Cities4Forests initiative.
• The National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) Climate Centre for Cities (NIUA C-Cube), World Resources Institute India (WRI India), and their partners launched India’s first national coalition platform for urban nature-based solutions (NbS).

Way forward

Nature-based solutions are recognized for their multiple benefits, including climate resilience, biodiversity conservation, and socio-economic advantages.

Involving local communities in the sustainable management of natural resources for mutual benefit is highly motivating. Promoting tourism that values and respects natural ecosystems, contributing to local economies and conservation efforts will also greatly add to the efforts of conservation.

Integrating nature-based solutions into policy frameworks, business practices, and community initiatives can contribute to sustainable development and the achievement of global environmental goals.

-Article by Swathi Satish