Diversity of nature based solutions

Nature-based solutions have been proposed as a family of approaches that can help society adapt to climate change and mitigate its impacts, enhance ecosystem services, and produce societal co-benefits.

Across the world, the momentum is growing for NbS as a vehicle for delivering green resilient and inclusive development, especially in the context of economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The Urban Nature Atlas

The Urban Nature Atlas, developed as part of the EU-funded NATURVATION project, is the most comprehensive database of nature-based solutions for cities. It includes more than a 1000 nature-based solutions from across Europe and beyond.

The atlas was developed as the result of a systematic survey of nature-based solutions interventions in 100 European cities and provides the basis for the analysis of socio-economic and innovation patterns associated with urban nature-based solutions in Europe.

Ways to apply NbS

NbS use a set of structural and non-structural interventions that protect, manage, restore, or create natural or nature based features. Multiple approaches are needed across different contexts and these need to be diverse, multifaceted and inclusive.

Nature-based solutions can address a complex range of city challenges. Some examples include:

• Forested catchments that provide clean water and store carbon.
• Urban wetlands that increase water infiltration and reduce flood risks.
• Urban and peri-urban farms that reduce food miles and connect people to the food they eat.
• Parks, tree-lined streets, green roofs and building facades that mitigate the urban heat effect and accelerate water drainage while reducing noise pollution, air pollution, and energy demand for cooling.
• City parks that connect people to nature, provide recreational space and islands of biodiversity.
• Mangroves, dunes and healthy reef systems that protect coastal cities from storm surges.
• Tree-shaded walking and cycling paths that provide combined ecosystem and mobility corridors, particularly when linked to city-wide public space networks.

New European Bauhaus award winning projects

A range of initiatives funded through a competitive process as part of the New European Bauhaus illustrate the diverse nature based solutions. Examples include:

The Xifré rooftop – Barcelona

The Xifré Rooftop is a dual purpose renovation project across an early 19th-century block of ten buildings. This roof garden creates a ‘floating’ wild space that enhances urban biodiversity as well as opportunities for social interaction between neighbours.

Gardens in the air – Sevilla

A circular initiative of urban renaturalisation involving artists, scientists, architects, designers and residents to imagine new relationships of sustainable prosperity through a vertical garden, a perfume that distils plants from the neighbourhood and a sound composition that celebrates new alliances.

Your Task

How diverse are the NbS in your city? Can you identify some dominant types?

Share your reflections in the comment section below.