Nature based solutions use lessons and features from the natural world to make environments more resilient to extremes. For example, by slowing water flow through revegetating bare areas in the hills we might reduce flood peaks in our towns and cities downstream. By creating more urban greenspace we might reduce pollution entering watercourses, including pollutants that enter by sewage overflow pipes. The latter is because: a) stormwater from urban areas can be held back and create less pressure on sewage infrastructure, and b) greenspace designs can trap pollutants. Such features may also positively impact our mental health and wellbeing.
However, billions of pounds are now being spent in the UK on hard engineering solutions (concrete, bigger pipes etc.), rather than on nature based solutions. Yet the Government’s 25 year Environment Plan requires step changes in land management to deliver landscape recovery (e.g. via mandatory Local Nature Recovery Strategies), biodiversity net gain, water quality benefits (which come from the wider landscape and not just storm sewage overflows), and net zero commitments.
This project seeks to unlock policy barriers to more widespread use of evidence-based nature-based solutions that will, in turn, generate economic and societal benefits through reduced flood and drought risk, improved water quality, better habitats and reduced land-based carbon emissions.
This project is funded by the 2024–2025 Research England Policy Support Fund.