Nature-based solutions use the natural properties of ecosystems. They have the potential to limit impacts of climate change, enhance biodiversity, and improve environmental quality while contributing to economic activities and social well-being.
Examples are green roofs and city parks that limit heat stress, city lagoons that store water and permeable surfaces, vegetation and rain gardens to intercept storm water. Yet despite their significant potential, the use of nature-based solutions remains marginal, fragmented, and highly uneven within and between cities.
Project Objectives
To unlock the potential of NBS for sustainable urban development, NATURVATION took a transdisciplinary, internationally comparative approach to:
- Advance assessment approaches
- Capture the multiple impacts & values of NBS to deliver a robust evidence base for decision-making; enable innovation
- Identify the most promising governance, business/finance and participation models and how to overcome the systemic conditions that currently limit their use to support systemic integration; and generate momentum to realise the potential of NBS through co-design, co-development & co-implementation of new partnerships, knowledge, recommendations, processes and tools required to build capacity, enable replication and foster cultural change.
Methods
To achieve the project goals, NATURVATION explored maps, built capacity, generated change, and took action.
