page_title: Nature-based solutions
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Nature-based solutions / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Chicago City Hall Green Roof
context_page_description: Nature-based solutions refers to the sustainable management and use of nature for tackling socio-environmental challenges. The challenges include issues such as climate change, water security, water pollution, food security, human health, and disaster risk management.
  The NBS definition by the European Union states that these solutions are "inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build resilience. Such solutions bring more, and more diverse, nature and natural features and processes into cities, landscapes and seascapes, through locally adapted, resource-efficient and systemic interventions". Research and Innovation projects on NBS funded by the EU Framework Programme need to respond to this definition. The Nature-based Solutions Initiative meanwhile defines them as "actions that work with and enhance nature so as to help people adapt to change and disasters". With NBS, healthy, resilient and diverse ecosystems can provide solutions for the benefit of societies and overall biodiversity.
context_section_description: Societies increasingly face challenges such as climate change, urbanization, jeopardized food security and water resource provision, and disaster risk. One approach to answer these challenges is to singularly rely on technological strategies. An alternative approach is to manage the (socio-)ecological systems in a comprehensive way in order to sustain and potentially increase the delivery of ecosystem services to humans. In this context, nature-based solutions (NBS) have recently been put forward by practitioners and quickly thereafter by policymakers. These solutions stress the sustainable use of nature in solving coupled environmental-social-economic challenges.
  While ecosystem services are often valued in terms of immediate benefits to human well-being and economy, NBS focus on the benefits to people and the environment itself, to allow for sustainable solutions that are able to respond to environmental change and hazards in the long-term. NBS go beyond the traditional biodiversity conservation and management principles by "re-focusing" the debate on humans and specifically integrating societal factors such as human well-being and poverty reduction, socio-economic development, and governance principles.
  With respect to water issues, NBS can achieve the following, according to the World Water Development Report 2018 by UN-Water:  
  Use natural processes to enhance water availability (e.g., soil moisture retention, groundwater recharge),
  Improve water quality (e.g., natural wetlands and constructed wetlands to treat wastewater, riparian buffer strips), and
  Reduce risks associated with water‐related disasters and climate change (e.g., floodplain restoration, green roofs).
caption: Chicago City Hall green roof
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