Glossary
Climate adaptation approaches
Benefits to people from increased social ability to respond to change, provided by the capacity of ecosystems to moderate and adapt to climate change and variability (Lavorel et al., 2015).
Community based adaptation
Community-based adaptation draws on participatory approaches and methods developed in both disaster risk reduction and community development work, as well as sectoral-specific approaches
Ecosystem based adaptation
The use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of an overall adaptation strategy to help people to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change (CBD, 2009).
Ecosystem based management
Integrated, science-based approach to the management of natural resources that aims to sustain the health, resilience and diversity of ecosystems while allowing for sustainable use by humans of the goods and services they provide (Kappel et al., 2006).
Ecosystem based mitigation
Enhance the benefits for, and avoid negative impacts on biodiversity from reducing emissions, taking into account the need to ensure the full and effective participation of indigenous and local communities in relevant policy-making and implementation processes, where appropriate. Enhance the conservation, sustainable use and restoration of marine and coastal habitats that are vulnerable to the effects of climate change or which contribute to climate-change mitigation (CBD, 2010).
Ecosystem based disaster risk reduction
The sustainable management, conservation and restoration of ecosystems to provide services that reduce disaster risk by mitigating hazards and by increasing livelihood resilience (Pedrr 2010)
Ecological engineering
The design of sustainable ecosystems that integrate human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both (Mitsch, 2012)
Ecological restoration
The attempt to repair or otherwise enhance the structure and function of an ecosystem that has been impacted by disturbance or environmental change (Suding, 2011).
Climate Resilience
Nature-based solutions are capable of providing resilience to the impacts of climate change through the provision of ecosystem services, and by enhancing social awareness and actions to combat climate change. The co-benefits delivered by NBS support climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, contributing to the liveability of cities and ecosystems.
Water Management
Nature-based solutions provide an excellent opportunity to address a diversity of issues associated with anthropogenic impacts on the water cycle. These include poor water quality, water availability for extraction, groundwater and surface water levels, recharging of aquifers, stormwater management, water treatment, wetland habitat management, soil water management, and ecological quality.
Natural and Climate Hazards
Risk is a combination of hazard and (negative) consequences. Nature-based solutions employed for disaster risk reduction are expected to reduce risk level (i.e., influence risk components corresponding to hazard or vulnerability). At the same time, NBS deliver further social, human, and environmental co-benefits.
Green Space Management
Green space management refers to the planning, establishment and maintenance of green and blue infrastructure in urban areas. Green and blue infrastructure (abbreviated as urban green infrastructure, UGI) are a type of NBS that refers specifically to the strategically managed network of natural and semi-natural ecosystems within urban boundaries. UGI provides a range of ecological and socio-economic benefits (Raymond et al., 2017) and, if correctly managed, contributes to solutions for numerous challenges such as air and noise pollution, heat waves, flooding and concerns regarding public well-being (Maes et al., 2019). NBS support the wider deployment of green and blue infrastructure (EC, 2019a; EC, 2019b), thus supporting the EU Green Infrastructure Strategy (EC, 2013) and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 (EC, 2020).
Biodiversity Enhancement
Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse are among the greatest threats society faces in the near term. There are five primary direct drivers of biodiversity loss: changes in land and sea use, overexploitation, climate change, pollution, and invasive alien species. The link between climate change and biodiversity loss involves a feedback loop whereby climate change accelerates loss of natural capital, which is in turn a key driver of climate change. NBS support the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 (EC, 2020) through the purposeful establishment of protected areas and restoration of degraded ecosystems.
Air Quality
NBS based on the creation, enhancement, or restoration of ecosystems in human-dominated environments play a relevant role in removing air pollutants and carbon dioxide, reducing the air temperature (which slows down the creation of secondary pollutants) and increasing oxygen concentration, contributing to a beneficial atmospheric composition for human life.
Place Regeneration
Urbanisation has a lasting impact on the natural environment of towns and cities, not only visible through dereliction, but also through increasing environmental footprint fuelled by economic growth and unsustainable patterns of consumption. Nature-based solutions hold the potential to contribute to the aim of ensuring successful achievement of sustainable place regeneration by way of enhancing the green space and people-nature connection, as well as using fewer environmental resources, enhancing place resilience to natural disasters, fostering collective participation and social cohesion, and improving individual wellbeing (Korkmaz and Balaban, 2020; Roberts and Sykes, 2000; Xiang et al., 2017).
Knowledge and Social Capacity Building for Sustainable Rural Transformation
Sustainable urban transformation delineates sustainable urban structures and environments, as well as radical social, economic, cultural, organizational, governmental, and physical change processes (Ernst et al., 2016; McCormick et al., 2013). Knowledge and social capacity building through educational initiatives can contribute to the complex enterprise of amassing resources for sustainable urban places. This challenge area is a new addition to the original ten challenges described in the EKLIPSE Expert Working Group impact evaluation framework (Raymond et al., 2017)
Participatory Planning and Governance
Nature-based solutions demand approaches to planning and governance frameworks that support accessibility to green spaces, while maintaining their quality for ecosystem services provision. Urban environmental transformation is a highly complex undertaking that requires open collaborative governance and robust capacities for participatory planning. Nature-based solutions already implemented and functional across Europe have contributed a wealth of knowledge in the area of participatory planning and governance, indicating, for instance, that successful outcomes call for openness to learning and experimenting along other urban actors so as to cocreate and co-maintain nature-based solutions while shaping institutional spaces in cities that allow for this co-creation, social innovation and collaboration to continue (Frantzeskaki, 2019). Significantly, open collaborative governance and participatory planning invested in nature-based solution strategies bring forward opportunities for social transformation and increased social inclusiveness in cities (Wendling et al., 2018).
Social Justice and Social Cohesion
Social Justice and Social Cohesion: Nature-based solutions have been linked to the notion of environmental justice across studies that explore the role of supporting urban processes involving equal access to neighbourhood green space in fostering social cohesion (e.g., bridging and bonding social capital) towards the cultural integration of typically-excluded social groups, like elderly, immigrants, persons with disabilities, etc. (i.e., recognition-based justice) (Ibes, 2015; Kweon et al., 1998; Raymond et al., 2017; Raymond et al., 2016; van Den Berg et al., 2017). Recently, Gentin et al. (2019) analysed the premises for a nature-based integration of immigrants in Europe and urged on researchers to set aside descriptions and analyses of immigrants’ perceptions or use of nature, and turn their focus towards exploring and developing nature-based solutions for the purposes of social integration.
Health and Wellbeing
Critical social and environmental determinants of health, including clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter, are impacted by climate change44. More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas (towns and cities), and this number is projected to increase to two in three people by 205045. Climate change and other environmental issues affect all categories of population, however it is most threatening in urban areas where the majority of the population live. This means that the consequences of climate change, poor air quality and other current concerns are often very obvious and disruptive to urban living, and can affect services such as sanitation leading to public health issues.
New Economic Opportunities and Green Jobs
Key criteria of NBS are their cost-effectiveness, and their capacity to simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits in support of resilience building. The adoption and implementation of NBS has the potential to create new economic opportunities and jobs in the green sector by enabling low-carbon, resource-efficient and socially inclusive economic growth. Within this paradigm, economic growth is driven by public and private investment in activities, infrastructure and assets that support reduced emissions of carbon and pollutants, and increased energy and resource efficiency whilst enhancing biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services
Better use of protected/natural ecosystems
Minimal or no intervention in ecosystems, with objectives related to maintaining or improving delivery of ecosystem services within and beyond the protected ecosystems
NBS for sustainability and multifunctionality of managed ecosystems
Extensive or intensive management approaches seeking to develop sustainable, multifunctional ecosystems and landscapes in order to improve delivery of ecosystem services relative to conventional interventions
Design and management of new ecosystems
Characterized by highly intensive ecosystem management or creation of new ecosystems