Nature Based Solutions Exam 1

Biodiversity and People at the Foundation of NBS

- Biodiversity underpins the benefits delivered by NbS. -NBS with and for people.

Example: Biodiversity underpins the benefits delivered by Nbs

-Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS, is the process of extracting bioenergy from biomass and involves capturing and permanently storing carbon. Biomass is utilized through combustion, fermentation, pyrolysis or other conversion methods. - Biochar is a charcoal-like substance made from burning organic material in a controlled process called pyrolysis. It's made from agricultural and forestry wastes, such as: Timber slash, Corn stalks, Manure, Wood chips, Plant residues for the purpose of transforming the biomass carbon into a more stable form (carbon sequestration).

Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs): NBS with and for people

1) As the stewards of their lands and natural resources, IPLCs often have rich knowledge of local ecosystems and their management, based on adaptive learning and lessons from past mistakes, with insight into what works in their specific environmental, socio- economic and political context. If external 'experts' undermine or ignore local knowledge, this could result in poor and ineffective land management decisions. 2) Co-creating NbS with IPLCs and tailoring them to the local context can facilitate adaptive management wherein interventions are modified to keep pace with environmental and socio-economic changes. 3) Local information about the diverse values of nature and how these differ across different sectors of society is crucial to the equitable distribution of benefits. 4) NbS involving a more equitable distribution of power between local communities and government, such as community managed forests, are more likely to have positive outcomes for both people and the ecosystems on which they depend. In part, this is because such interventions empower and motivate marginalized groups (such as women or Indigenous Peoples) who have access to, and control over, key resources. 5) NbS that take account of diverse local norms, values, beliefs, and build social capital are more likely to be adopted by IPLCs and supported long-term.

The fundamental components of an EIA would necessarily involve the following stages:

1. Screening: • to determine which projects or developments require a full or partial impact assessment study. 2. Scoping: • to identify which potential impacts are relevant to assess. • to identify alternative solutions that avoid, mitigate or compensate adverse impacts on biodiversity. • to develop terms of reference (TOR) for the impact assessment. 3. Assessment and evaluation of impacts and development of alternatives: • to predict and identify the likely environmental impacts of a proposed project, including suggesting alternatives 4. Reporting the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) or EIA report: • reporting an environmental management plan (EMP), and a non-technical summary for the general audience. 5. Review of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS): • review based on the terms of reference (scoping) and public (including authority) participation. 6. Decision-making on whether to approve the project or not, and under what conditions. 7. Monitoring, compliance, enforcement and environmental auditing: • monitor whether the predicted impacts and proposed mitigation measures occur as defined in the EMP. • verify the compliance of proponent with the EMP, to ensure that unpredicted impacts or failed mitigation measures are identified and addressed in a timely fashion.

Execution stage Step 7: Assessment

A more detailed assessment of the environmental and financial aspect needs to be carried out. Depending on the scale of the project, two formal analyses may be required: • Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) • Cost-benefit analysis (CBA)

Forest landscape restoration

A process that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human wellbeing in a deforested or degraded forest landscape

Green/blue infrastructure (GI/GBI/BI)

A strategically planned and managed, spatially interconnected network of multifunctional natural, semi-natural, and man-made green and blue features including agricultural land, green corridors, urban parks, forest reserves, wetlands, rivers, coastal and other aquatic ecosystems. (ex. an integrated network of natural and semi-natural areas and features, such as urban green spaces, greenways, parks, rain gardens, greenways, urban forestry, urban agriculture, green roofs, and walls, etc)

Short and long term: Biodiversity underpins the benefits delivered by NbS

Actions that support biodiversity underpin societal benefits in two ways: they boost the delivery of many ecosystem services in the short term, and they support the health and resilience of ecosystems in the long term. For example, high-yielding monoculture crops or plantations can produce more food or wood per hectare for a few years compared to a mixed species system. However, diversity is essential for long-term sustainability, as functional resilience to stressors such as climate change, invasive species and new pathogens is strongly determined by ecosystem connectivity and biodiversity at multiple trophic level. Cultural ecosystem services are also enhanced: more species-rich green spaces have been shown to support greater personal wellbeing and more visitors are attracted to protected areas with more habitat types and threatened species and/or higher bird species richness.

Unwanted impacts of NBS: Tree Planting

Benefits: Carbon Sequestration, Shade, Birds, Cooling Effect Unwanted Impacts: Allelopathy, Allergen, Exotic Species, Monoculture

Berlin NBS project 5: Mixed forests program

Berlin has approx. 16000 ha of forest within the city's territory and further 12500 ha in the surrounding area of the State Brandenburg. Berlin's forests are gradually being transformed, replacing the predominant coniferous wood planted during the 19th and early 20th century with mixed woods which are closer to the pristine forest typical for this area. The resilience of forests to climate change will increase as a result of having a pristine mix of tree species.

Berlin NBS project 6: 20 Green Walks

Berlin's Green Walks project started in 2004 as a result of a citizens' initiative and was adopted by the city administration afterwards. The project consists of a network of over 500 km of marked routes along 20 Green Walks connecting residential city districts with recreational areas that are protected from road traffic. This project coincides with the concept of connecting green areas, as many of the areas identified in the overarching green spaces strategies are used for the Green Walks.

Biodiversity underpins the benefits delivered by NbS

Biodiversity is essential to secure the flow of ecosystem services now and into the future, NbS must deliver benefits for biodiversity, as well as people. • Global Standard for NbS clearly distinguishes NbS from actions that exploit nature but can damage biodiversity, such as certain types of agriculture, BioEnergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), commercial forestry and recreational activities that harm sensitive habitats or species.

Biological Control

Biological control (biocontrol) involves the reduction of pest populations through the use of natural enemies such as parasitoids, predators, pathogens, antagonists, or competitors to suppress pest populations.

Blue Carbon

Blue carbon is simply the term for carbon captured by the world's ocean and coastal ecosystems.

Crop Rotation

Crop rotation is the practice of planting different crops sequentially on the same plot of land to improve soil health, optimize nutrients in the soil, and combat pest and weed pressure.

Greenwashing

Greenwashing is the exaggeration of a company's environmental credentials. That is, marketing communications impress business operations to be better for the environment than they are in reality

Preliminary Assessment: Assessment techniques

Multi-criteria assessment (MCA) Cost Effectiveness Analysis (CEA)

Berlin Program for Sustainable: Development Berliner Programm für Nachhaltige Entwicklung (BENE)

NBS for urban green connectivity and biodiversity 1) NBS project 1: Urban greening 2) NBS project 2: Green Moabit 3) NBS project 3: Transforming vacant urban areas 4) NBS project 4: School gardens 5) NBS project 5: Mixed forests program 6) NBS project 6: 20 Green Walks 7) NBS project 7: Nomadic gardening

Reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation+ (REDD+)

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, fostering conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbons stocks in developing countries

Berlin NBS project 4: School gardens

School gardening, in a secondary school covering all aspects of urban gardening, including further awareness about healthy food. Gardening activities were extended beyond the school area to a neighboring vacant area.

Social Capital

Social capital is a set of shared values or resources that allows individuals to work together in a group to effectively achieve a common purpose. It can also be thought of as the potential ability to obtain resources, favors, or information from one's personal connections. Social capital is the glue that holds organizations together. When teams feel connected, they tend to get more work done and do it faster.

Planning Stage

Step 1: Problem definition Step 2: Stakeholder selection Step 3: Scoping analysis Step 4: Multiple Scenarios Step 5: Preliminary Assessment

Exectuions Stage: 4 stages

Step 6. Detailed Design Step 7. Assessment Step 8. Business case / Financing Step 9. Implementation

Ecological Engineering

The design of sustainable ecosystems that integrate human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both

Insurance effects

The diversity of species, ecological traits and genes contained within communities of plants, animals, fungi and bacteria buffers ecosystems against disturbance/damage via 'insurance effects', that is, spatial and in ecological functions, as well as by among multiple taxa. (ex. Natural forests and mixed species forest plantations have more stable carbon stores during climate extremes compared to species-poor plantations as do high diversity grassland plots compared to low diversity plots.)

Agroforestry, including silvo-arable and silvo-pasture

The practice of planting trees on farmland, including as rows between crops, or as shelter for livestock

Ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (eco-DRR)

The sustainable management, conservation and restoration of ecosystems to reduce disaster risk, with the aim of achieving sustainable and resilient development

Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA)

The use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of an overall adaptation and mitigation strategy to help people to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change

Adaptation benefits of NBS

There is now a substantive evidence base demonstrating that NbS can reduce exposure to climate impacts such as flooding, erosion, water scarcity and reduced agricultural productivity. orestoring and protecting coastal ecosystems can defend against flooding and storm surges orestoration and protection of forests and wetlands can improve water security, and reduce risk of floods, soil erosion and landslides onature-based agriculture (e.g., agroforestry) can increase resilience of food supplies to pests, diseases and climatic extremes ourban NbS can make a key contribution to flood mitigation and cooling cities

Berlin NBS project 7: Nomadic gardening

This initiative for temporary use of vacant urban space for community gardening started in 2009 and aims to create a community around urban gardening and food production. It is located in the densely urbanized area of the district of Kreuzberg. The concept is based on temporary use of areas awaiting new occupancy, so only removable containers are used for gardening. The lease is periodically renewed by the city administration. The food produced is used for the garden's own café/restaurant.

NBS with and for people

To deliver effective, resilient, legitimate and equitable outcomes, all relevant stakeholders (especially Indigenous Peoples and local communities, IPLCs) should be engaged in the design, implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation of NbS, and interventions should foster ownership, empowerment, and wellbeing of the local stewards shaping the landscapes in which they take place.

Integrated land management (ILM), Sustainable land management (SLM), Catchment management and the Ecosystem Approach

Various approaches to managing whole landscapes, with participation by all stakeholders

Agro-ecology, conservation agriculture and organic agriculture

Various approaches to sustainable agriculture that aim to protect soil health

Beta diversity (β-diversity)

a comparison of diversity between ecosystems (e.g., reefs), usually measured as the number of species change between the ecosystems.

Lack of Alignment: NBS with and for people

a lack of alignment with local perspectives can deter active participation and disempower local communities, which, in turn, can compromise local support for NbS, jeopardizing their success while also constraining local adaptive capacity.

Gamma diversity (γ-diversity)

a measure of the overall diversity within a large region. Geographic-scale species diversity.

Global South

refers broadly to the regions of Latin America, Asia, and Africa

Allelopathy

refers to a negative or positive effect on one type of plant, by a chemical produced by another type of plant. Various types of chemicals, including phenolics, hydroxamic acids, and short chain fatty acids, have been identified as having allopathic properties.

Alpha diversity (α-diversity)

the diversity within a particular area or ecosystem; usually expressed by the number of species.

Multiple scenarios: example

• A coastal defense system consists of several elements. They function together as a system to resist the threats of wave attacks, erosion, flooding, storm surges. • Different scenarios for building natural defenses are conceivable: ➢strengthen barriers against wave attack ➢create higher barriers against flooding ➢combinations of these two. • The selection of an optimal nature-based solution can only be made after in-depth analysis based on models of local wave climate, hydro-morphology, sediment transport, sediment supply etc.

Industry: NbS can distract from the need to decarbonize energy systems

• A number of high emitting industries are now proposing to use NbS to offset their greenhouse gas emissions, including airports (Heathrow Airport Limited, 2018), airlines (Delta, 2020) and oil and gas companies (Shell, 2019b). • Use and marketing of NbS (and other carbon dioxide removal options) creates a 'moral hazard' because it enables companies to claim carbon neutrality without cutting emission production, thus slowing global progress towards net-zero while encouraging customers to drive or fly more, or to view mitigation policies generally as being less necessary. • For example, customers purchasing Shell Go+ petrol (gasoline) have been told that they can 'drive carbon neutral' through the use of nature-based carbon offsets (Shell, 2019c)

Staekholders selection: experts

• A successful NBS builds on the input of experts from different disciplines and scientific domains. • Ecological and other natural scientists should be invited to offer innovative NBS. • At the same time, engineering scientists should contribute to the design and testing of innovative NBS. • And finally, social and economic scientists should be involved in order to facilitate and support uptake of NBS by stakeholders.

The promise of NBS

• Adaptation benefits of nature-based solutions • Mitigation benefits of nature-based solutions

Assessment Techniques: Multi-criteria assessment (MCA)

• An MCA is a semi-quantitative analysis in which the performance of a number of measures is scored against multiple criteria. • The criteria may be chosen in view of the problem at hand. • In any case, environmental, social, and economic aspects should be scored, for example, on a scale of 1 to 5. • The technique is very useful for consulting multiple stakeholders involved in the assessment.

Fine Scale

• At the fine scale, NBS include, among others: yards, gardens, pocket and small neighborhood parks, vegetated roofs and walls, as well as water elements, and edible plantings. • In general, the greening at this level may contribute to the mitigation of heat islands and noise, supporting biodiversity, reducing the risk of floods from cloudbursts, and decreasing energy consumption in buildings.

Nature-based Solution: Mangrove finance

• Based on a common understanding of the international science community, the Mangrove Breakthrough goal was defined by scientists from the GMA Science Working Group and the Mangrove Specialist Group using best available geospatial data, and knowledge about finance needs. Ensuring sustainable long-term finance for all existing mangroves by achieving an investment of 4 billion USD • Halting mangrove losses • Restoring half of recent mangrove losses • Doubling the protection of mangroves globally.

Nature-based Solution: Mangroves

• By 2050, the global community will face annual costs of over $1 trillion to coastal urban areas as a result of the combined effects of rising sea levels and extreme weather events. • More affected areas: Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developing Countries (LDCs) • At the center of the solution to enhancing coastal resilience lies the protection and restoration of coastal ecosystems and biodiversity.

Nature-based Solution: Why mangroves?

• Coastal habitats not only help mitigate the impacts of climate change by sequestering carbon and acting as important natural buffers to sea-level rise and storm surges, but they also play a critical role for income, culture, livelihoods, and nutrition security, especially for coastal communities in SIDS and LDCs. • Perhaps the most effective and critical solutions in this respect is the protection and restoration of mangroves.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a process of evaluating the likely environmental impacts of a proposed project or development, taking into account inter-related socioeconomic, cultural and human-health impacts, both beneficial and adverse. • EIA is a tool used to identify the environmental, social and economic impacts of a project prior to decision-making. • It aims to predict environmental impacts at an early stage in project planning and design, find ways and means to reduce adverse impacts, shape projects to suit the local environment and present the predictions and options to decision-makers. • By using EIA both environmental and economic benefits can be achieved, such as reduced cost and time of project implementation and design, avoided treatment/clean-up costs and impacts of laws and regulations.

Delft: objectives

• Establishing nature-based solutions for coastal resilience • Restoring ecosystems and their functions • Developing climate change adaptation; improving risk management and resilience

Stakeholder selection: Who should participate in planning

• Everyone who has responsibility in the planning of the structural, architectural, and technical aspects at the site where the NBS is foreseen should take part in the planning process. • Clearly, the group of stakeholders will be very different and more structured in the case of a multimillion coastal protection project than for the creation of a nature-friendly playground. • The representative stakeholders should be involved early on and contribute in particular during the preliminary design stage. example: if a structural engineer is not included in the planning of a vegetated roof from the beginning, it may only be noticed too late in the process that the support structures are too weak, which may ruin the aims for rainwater retention.

Example: Governmental and non-governmental interest in NBS

• For example, nearly half of the 64 adaptation targets included in 30 NDCs involve the protection and/or restoration of forest, and afforestation accounts for 22% of nature- based adaptation targets. • Similarly, 42 nations have committed to collectively bringing 350 million hectares of deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2030 as signatories of the Bonn Challenge. • 41 national and 21 subnational governments (together with 61 companies, 22 Indigenous groups and 66 non-governmental organizations) have pledged to halt deforestation by 2030 as signatories of the New York Declaration on Forests

Mainstreaming of NBS

• Growth of research on NbS and recent global syntheses • Governmental and non-governmental interest in nature-based solutions • Private sector interest in nature-based solutions

Step 2. Stakeholder selection

• Identify all important stakeholders, i.e., all actors in the planning, implementation, and maintenance phases, as well as the end-users (and get them involved). • This involves the parties directly involved in the planning and implementation process, but also third parties affected by the project. • Every planning process should start with a screening of people who may have an interest in the functionality of the nature-based solution.

Execution Stage Step 7 Assessment: Cost-benefit analysis (CBA)

• In a CBA, the costs of the project are compared to the welfare effects/benefits/negative impact. • If the value of the benefits exceeds the costs, the project is in principle feasible. • The cost/benefit assessment may be determined in relation to a reference situation ("do nothing") or to an alternative 'grey' project with similar goals. • For NBS projects that require financing by third parties, a formal CBA may be necessary.

Nature-based Solution: Mangrove benefits

• In achieving the Mangrove Breakthrough, they estimate a climate benefit of sequestering over 43.5 million tons of CO2 into mangrove biomass and safeguarding or sequestering an additional 189 million tons of CO2 in the soil. Blue Carbon • Restoring half of recently lost mangroves would potentially benefit 37 commercial marine species of fish, crabs, bivalves and shrimp by providing habitat for over 25 billion juveniles each year. • And the coastal protection provided by mangroves against flooding and storms - securing lives, infrastructure and economic security - has been estimated to reduce flood risk for over 15 million people and over $65 billion worth of property annually.

Scoping analysis: summary

• In summary, objective performance criteria must be defined at this stage; they will enable the assessment and monitoring of the functioning of the NBS, once implemented. • Outline the expected ecological, environmental, social, and economic outcomes of the project. • Ideally, this phase should result in the specification of the goals, the constraints, and the design requirements.

Delft Benefits

• In the context of restoring the local ecosystem, the sand engine enhances and offers better protection to biodiversity (i.e., local species), securing local habitat and food provision. • It promotes the sustainable development of the coastal area, while ensuring climate adaptation, risk management, and resilience. • The project is designed in such a way that it generates additional benefits for nature development, recreation, and knowledge development (societal benefits) too.

Relevant ecosystem: Mitigation benefits of NBS

• Intact ecosystems act as carbon sinks, but agriculture, forestry and other land-use activities (AFOLU) emit CO2, methane and nitrous oxide, accounting for around 23% of total net anthropogenic emissions of GHGs • Terrestrial ecosystems currently sequester 29% of annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions • Oceans remove 24% of annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions

Multiple scenarios: dynamic nature of biotic systems

• It is important to recognize and discuss the dynamic nature of biotic systems: ➢an ecosystem is continuously changing, ➢responding to external disturbances, ➢adapting to changing conditions, and ➢interacting with its surrounding environment. • The dynamic nature of ecosystems may change the benefits over the lifetime of the NBS.

How to define a problem

• It takes a project sponsor to trigger the definition of a problem and to suggest further action. • Project sponsors can be authorities at all levels, local citizen initiatives, NGO, but also commercial developers. • This stage of project development should result in an outline of the problem and possible approaches (resources, timeline, legislative restrictions, etc.).

Step 5: Preliminary assessment

• List the multiple and that may be expected for each design/scenario. • Scenario assessment: Evaluate the preliminary designs or scenarios by using multiple performance criteria defined in step 3 and select the preferred approach. • Note that in the case of NBS there are two phases in the design process: the preliminary design and the detailed design. This also necessitates two corresponding stages in the assessment. • In this step, the preliminary designs must be assessed in order to select the most promising solution.

Modeling: Mitigation benefits of NBS

• Modelling estimation of NbS to mitigate climate change, shows that most significant contributions for cost-effective avoided emissions of CO2 come from, oprotecting intact forests, wetlands and grasslands (4 Gt CO2 year−1) omanaging timberlands, croplands and grazing lands (4 Gt CO2 year−1 ) and oby restoring native forests and wetlands (2 Gt CO2 year−1) Therefore, the total mitigation potential of land-based NbS is around 10 Gt CO2 year-1 This translates into reducing global warming by 0.1°C if warming peaks mid-century at 1.5°C. However, if warming peaks later in the century at 2°C, there would be more time for the benefits of NbS to accrue and they would reduce peak warming by 0.3°C. However, their potential is relatively small compared to what can be achieved by the rapid phase out of fossil fuel use.

Multifunctional and Multiscale Benefits of NBS

• NBS aim to produce multiple benefits through multifunctionality. • Multifunctionality, i.e., the capacity to produce several services simultaneously at the same locality, is probably the most important attribute of NBS in comparison to grey infrastructure • Benefits are simultaneous, they can not be isolated. • NBS also consume natural resources and if not planned and installed carefully, NBS may produce some unwanted impacts and ecosystem disservices.

Problem definition: scale

• NBS approaches and benefits come in many forms and function at different scales. The scale plays a role in defining the specific problem that can be addressed at this level of scale. • Risk of river flooding (fluvial) needs to be addressed at the catchment scale (Regional Scale), • Pluvial flooding/heat island effects requires responses at the scale of an urban zone (Local Scale) • Improvement of the environment by more nature (gardens, roof gardens), or water management at building scale (Fine Scale).

Project Development: Uncertainty and Complexity

• NBS are often proposed to solve a particular problem, but at the same time, they offer multiple ecosystem services. Such complexity makes a project more interesting, but an element of uncertainty is also expected. • More than one type of NBS is conceivable at the same project/time, and selection and design optimization is necessary. • NBS in general, and urban NBS in particular, need to involve a variety of stakeholders to create broad support. • Furthermore, nature has its own dynamics and the performance of an NBS is expected to change over time; uncertainty in the results is inherent in NBS and therefore monitoring and feedback is essential.

Step 1. Problem definition

• NBS may form an adequate response to a wide variety of problems and issues (climate change adaptation and mitigation issues as well as risk management and resilience). • NBS serve as a potentially valuable tool for reaching multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and related sustainability objectives such as the sustainable urbanization and the restoration of degraded ecosystems. • The major hazards to be addressed by NBS include extremes in temperature and precipitation due to climate change, loss of biodiversity, sea level rise, followed by population pressures. • These hazards result in many different challenges: heat islands in cities, need for sustainable water management, wide-spread air pollution, risk of flooding, etc. NBS approaches and benefits come in many forms and function at different scales.

NbS can distract from the need to decarbonize energy systems

• NbS are increasingly being promoted as a climate change mitigation solution. • This has been fueled by influential estimates of the potential for 'Natural Climate Solutions' that have optimistic upper limits or are simply incorrect • Over-reliance on NbS as a cheap offsetting option in corporate mitigation policies distracting from the urgent need for aggressive and rapid greenhouse gas emission reduction in all sectors of the economy

Local effect: Adaptation benefits of NBS

• NbS can also build the adaptive capacity of local communities to future stressors through participatory design, implementation and management of NbS. • Giving local people leadership roles and supporting them to govern their own resources can strengthen their ability to address future climate hazards. • For example, - can build social cohesion and empowers women by providing them with natural resource management training, thus increasing participation in creating adaptation strategies. • These benefits to social capital can feed back into improved and sustained stewardship of the ecosystem to ensure the continued supply of nature's benefits.

Examples: Potential Pitfalls of NBS

• NbS can distract from the need to decarbonize energy systems • Over-emphasis on tree planting rather than a wide range of NbS • Potential adverse impacts on local communities • Failure to ensure benefits for biodiversity

Types: Mitigation benefits of NBS

• NbS can increase the size of the land and ocean carbon sinks and reduce the release of GHGs driven by human activities in the AFOLU sector, making a critical contribution to climate change mitigation this century. • Protecting intact ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, kelp forests and seagrass meadows limits CO2 emissions • Restoring native vegetation cover enhances CO2 removal from the atmosphere; • Improving the management of working lands (e.g., plantations, cropland, pastures) can significantly reduce CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions, and sequester carbon. • There is a growing evidence that urban green infrastructure can also make a significant contribution to mitigating GHG emissions.

Global South: Adaptation benefits of NBS

• NbS secure the delivery of a wide range of benefits that sustain diverse sources of food and income, which provide nutritional and financial security when crops or usual sources of income fail in the face of climate extremes. • This is particularly important in the Global South, where dependency on local natural resources for food and income is high. • For example, in Vanuatu, marine protected areas act as a reservoir of resources that can be temporarily opened to fishing as a source of food and income for the local communities, when terrestrial-based livelihoods are reduced due to drought.

Project Development: evaluation and adjustment

• Objective methodologies are needed to demonstrate the long-term effectiveness of NBS. • Adaptive management is an inherent feature of nature-based projects. Adaptive management differs from traditional management approaches in that it allows management activities to proceed despite some uncertainty about meeting design goals. • In fact, it specifically targets such uncertainty: it compels ecosystem managers to be open and explicit regarding what is known and not known about the processes. • It provides a science-based learning process, characterized by using outcomes for evaluation and adjustment.

Execution stage Step 6: Detailed Design

• Once the preferred preliminary design has been selected, the detailed design is developed. • It very much depends on the type of NBS as to how much detail is necessary in the design. • For the development of urban gardens, the design work is limited, but a project to reconnect the floodplains in a river basin needs detailed design.

Three stages of NBS projects

• Planning stage: define project goals, specify the strategy and the design approach. • Execution stage: develop detailed design, build/construct, implement. • Delivery stage: operate, maintain, monitor, follow-up.

Stakeholders to be involved in the planning process of an NBS could include:

• Politicians, • Public Agencies, • Experts and Scientists, • Institutions, • Communities, • Non-governmental Organizations, • Landowners And Developers, • For-profit Industry/Firms

NBS Project Development

• Projects built in the natural environment always face an element of uncertainty. • Nature is not fully predictable, and the result of a project may necessitate the adjustments over the course of time. • In the realization of any project, one can distinguish three successive stages which are: plan, build, operate. However, in the nature-based projects there are elements of uncertainty that necessitate a more detailed planning process.

A Story of Climate Resiliency from the Himalayan Region

• Rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and extreme weather events have increased the vulnerability of farming communities in the Indian Himalayan Region and furthered the marginalization of hill communities in the Champawat District in Uttarakhand State. • With financing from the Adaptation Fund, NABARD and the BAIF Development Research Foundation are working with 10 villages in the Champawat District to build resilience to climate change and water scarcity. • The project employs adaptation strategies such as spring rejuvenation, rainwater harvesting, drip irrigation and sprinklers, and climate resilient farming practices.

Step 4. Multiple scenarios

• Scenario development: Structuring a set of preliminary designs or scenarios based on system analysis. • The project can now proceed with the development of a number of alternative preliminary designs or scenarios. • The use of multiple planning and assessment tools is useful for visualizing possible impacts and benefits of the NBS. There are various innovative datasets and tools available nowadays for achieving holistic scenario building.

Step 3. Scoping analysis

• Specifying the problem and its framework (resources, timeline, legislative restrictions, etc.) as well as the purpose for conducting this process. • Document the problems that the NBS should solve, the challenges it should meet, and the aims it should fulfil. • Realistic estimates should be developed for the resources that can be mobilized, the timeframe, the expertise required, and the need for expert support. • The legislative framework must be clarified: are permits required? Is there a need for public procurement? Are there specific norms or standards that apply?

Assessment Techniques: Cost Effectiveness Analysis (CEA)

• The CEA method can be used if the NBS primarily targets a single issue such as flood protection, combatting noise pollution, or extreme climate effects. • The assessment should answer the question: how much protection would each alternative provide for a fixed amount of investment? ("How much flood protection per dollar?"). • A drawback is that the method does not give credit to multiple benefits and other services provided.

Delft Details

• The Dutch coastal zone is prone to flooding. The Netherlands has chosen to protect the coast by means of adaptive solutions with the aim of maintaining the coastline • The sand engine, the artificially created expanse of sand off the coast of Zuid-Holland was developed to protect the Dutch coastline from erosion by making use of naturally occurring maritime currents • The idea behind the sand engine is conversely to create a single, enormous 20 million cubic meter sand suppletion in one go, off the coast. • Under the influence of waves, wind and the current along the coast, the sand spreads all by itself (hence 'sand motor'). • Every year, a million cubic meters of sand will spread out along the Dutch coast from the sand engine making fewer or no sand suppletion necessary over the coming years. • After 20 years, the sands engine should have disappeared entirely; the whole idea is for it to wash away.

Berlin NBS project 3: Transforming vacant urban areas

• The city area includes some large, centrally located vacant areas which have not been utilized for decades after the Second World War. These include the areas of Gleisdreieck and the Schöneberger Südgelände, both of which contain disused railways, and the former city airport Tempelhof. The development of these areas followed different concepts: • The Gleisdreieck and the Schöneberger Südgelände aim at matching the diverse recreational needs of different social groups, including, for example, nature areas, meeting places, sports, playgrounds and urban gardening. •The 'TempelhoferFeld' offers mainly areas for outdoor sports like skating. It has 300hectares(ha) of wide and open green space with stretches of asphalt left over from its time as an airport. Nevertheless, this area also offers niches for other types of uses (urban gardening, playgrounds, picnic areas, etc).

Traditional projects vs. NBS

• The differences between traditional projects and nature-based projects suggest that the steps in the design and implementation process should be more articulate. • While there are incentives to favor NBS over grey projects, it is necessary to demonstrate their effectiveness. • During the design process and the development of the business case, at various stages of the process, the NBS under consideration needs to be assessed in order to optimize the choices and justify the costs. • Once the NBS has been implemented, the evolution and functioning needs to be monitored. This requires the definition of clear design goals and the selection of robust monitoring methodologies that are capable of demonstrating the results of an NBS and comparing these to the goals established for the project.

Potential pitfalls of NBS

• The endorsement of NbS by governments, NGOs and businesses across the world is to be welcomed. However, a number of challenges are emerging. • NbS can distract from the need for systemic change, including rapid phase out of fossil fuel use, and there is an over-emphasis on planting trees rather than investing in a wide range of ecosystems. • Poorly designed NbS can cause adverse impacts for climate mitigation, local communities, biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Cases Stuidies on NBS: Berlin, Germany

• The focus for climate change adaptation in Berlin is on urban heat and urban flooding, as both of these extreme weather events are expected to occur more frequently due to climate change. • Urban greening, including the greening of roofs and facades as well as the creation of green spaces are thus considered crucial for both providing cooling and dealing with increased quantities of rainwater during extreme events

Scoping analysis: benefits and drawbacks

• The idea of NBS is that different aims can be targeted simultaneously, and to do this, a thorough mapping of the expected benefits needs to be carried out as well as possible drawbacks. • The ecosystem characterization, including the specification of its boundaries, its future development, and an inventory of possible ecosystem services should be clarified. • NBS may play an essential role in the local community and the stakeholders need to be consulted at this stage on the socio-economic aspects. • The link between ecological systems and societal systems should be efficiently established. Therefore, it is important to be inclusive while defining the targets, and to enhance communication so that everyone in the process has a chance to reflect on the issues.

Governmental and non-governmental interest in nature-based solutions

• The majority (66%) of the world's nations have committed to implementing NbS in some form to address the causes and consequences of climate change in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the climate pledges produced by signatories of the Paris Agreement. • Most of the high-level government targets for NbS focus on forests.

Stakeholder Selection: Challenges of NBS

• The plan to develop an NBS in response to a particular challenge may face resistance for reasons of unfamiliarity, established interests, or traditional values. • There are, however, several ways to manage such issues. For example, investors can be forced to create a wide collaboration via green procurement rules. • Another possibility is to motivate via information sharing, strong communication skills, or by reference to visionary examples and pilot projects. • It may be necessary to introduce new expertise covering, for example, ecology, hydrology, psychology.

Delft: Sand Engine/Sand Motor

• The sand engine on the Dutch coast is a distinct case study for the classification type of "Type 3 - Design and management of new ecosystems", in the category of "Ecological restoration of degraded coastal and marine ecosystems". • The sand engine is an innovative coastal management practice that was planned and implemented in order to prevent the erosion of a section of the Dutch coastline, exploiting the stream of the local maritime currents.

The scale dimension of BNS

• The scale dimensions related to NBS impacts can entail various aspects, such as spatial, temporal, ecological, social, jurisdictional, cultural, or economical. • An example of the possible levels of consideration for spatial aspects can be e.g., building, block, district, municipality, region. • An example of the social scale levels could entail individual, family, group, and a larger population. • The important scale dimensions and the meaningful levels depend on the focal task. In general, the categorization of scale levels- such as fine- scale, local scale and regional scale.

Potential: Mitigation benefits of nature-based solutions

• The total mitigation potential of improvements in the land-use sector, including coastal ecosystems, estimated 10 - 15 Gt CO2e year−1. • However, this includes BioEnergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), which is not an NbS under the IUCN and EC definitions. • When we exclude BECCS, the total global mitigation potential comes to around 11 Gt CO2e year−1 .

Quantification: Adaptation benefits of NBS

• There have been attempts to quantify the effects of NbS for adaptation at regional or global scales. • The protection of coastal ecosystems could benefit upwards of 500 million people globally, bringing benefits of over $100 billion per annum. • Afforestation/reforestation and improved and sustainable forest management are both estimated to provide climate adaptation benefits for >25 million people, and reduced deforestation is estimated to benefit 1-25 million people.

Dilemma: NbS can distract from the need to decarbonize energy systems

• This creates a dilemma: high-emitting industries can provide substantial funding for ecosystem restoration ($300 M in the case of Shell Go+), but this promotes continued fossil fuel use which is incompatible with long-term climate targets. • The concept of NbS has, in some cases, been co-opted for corporate greenwashing. • The challenge is how to direct funding towards well-planned NbS projects that do not delay decarbonization. • Part of the solution may be to allow companies to claim NbS offsets only if they meet stringent criteria for reducing emissions throughout their operations and supply chains, as well as adhering to the IUCN Global Standard for NbS to ensure the quality of offset projects.

Limits of NbS: NbS can distract from the need to decarbonize energy systems

• This is also problematic because there are limits on the extent to which NbS can contribute to offsetting continued fossil fuel emissions. • Constraints on land area and tree growth dynamics limit the amount of carbon that can ultimately be removed by tree planting or forest regrowth. • Using NbS as offsets is also risky, because of the chance of stored carbon being released at a later date. • Without rapid phase out of fossil fuel use, climate change threatens to turn emission sinks into sources, as vegetation becomes stressed, wildfires become more frequent, and soils and oceans warm.

Execution stage: Step 9. Implementation

• This step covers the building/construction of the detailed design. • The details (schedule, project management, resources, etc.) depend very much on the scale, the type of NBS, and the location of the project.

Preliminary assessment: Data development

• Thorough mapping of the expected benefits and constraints needs to be carried out. • All the stakeholders should be involved in listing the multiple benefits that may be expected from each alternative design. • The benefits should preferably be categorized as environmental, social, or economic.

Execution stage Step 8: Business case /Financing

• You have a Project Owner/Key Financer. You are looking for other opportunities. • Who will benefit from the NBS? The project owner or third parties as well? If third parties benefit as well, are they willing to pay for the benefits received? In that case the project owner needs to invest in the project but may reduce the financial burden in the operational stage. • Is the project in the public or private domain? If public, is payment by public possible? If private, can finance be found? • Is public-private partnership an option?

Berlin NBS Project 2: Green Moabit • greening of rooftops, facades, streets and courtyards • transformation of impervious surfaces into green surfaces • subsurface solutions for rainwater harvesting

• greening of rooftops, facades, streets and courtyards • transformation of impervious surfaces into green surfaces • subsurface solutions for rainwater harvesting

Berlin NBS project 1: Urban greening

• measures for creating connections; • sustainable urban water management; • the improvement of recreational areas within and in the surroundings of deprived neighborhoods.