Getting to knowNature-Based Solutions

Nature-based climate solutions are measures that protect, restore and sustainably manage natural or modified ecosystems. These solutions have the aim of maintaining or enhancing biodiversity and benefits to human communities.

Nature-based solutions enhance resilience of infrastructure, incorporating natural assets and ecosystems in place of or in tandem with grey infrastructure, providing not only the core service identified as a need but also many additional ecosystem services as co-benefits. Nature-based solutions are different from biomimicry, wherein engineered assets mimic natural functions but use grey infrastructure to do so (e.g. permeable pavement, cisterns, rain barrels).

Nature-based solutions have a vital role to play in managing climate risk in Canada. These measures not only provide protection from risk, they also deliver multiple benefits, including improved biodiversity, carbon sequestration and storage, enhanced wellbeing and opportunities for recreational activities. Nature-based solutions also provide communities with the ability to delegate land more efficiently.

While traditional asset management focuses only on grey infrastructure, the value of nature based solutions as an asset type is now being recognized and incorporated into more traditional asset management systems.

Understanding and measuring the capacity of an existing wetland to manage flooding in a community, for example, allows planners and developers to recognize its existing value as a stormwater management utility. This provides an opening to discuss how the preservation of an existing wetland could reduce the amount of additional grey stormwater infrastructure needed. In addition, other ecosystem benefits that don’t always get considered as core services (pollinator habitat, biodiversity, passive and active cooling in the immediate area, carbon sequestration and storage, etc.) may be preserved or maintained.

Many traditional investments have been in grey infrastructure projects, which may limit where and when it is feasible to implement nature-based solutions. However, whereas grey infrastructure starts depreciating in value and/or functionality as soon as it is built, a well built and maintained urban forest, constructed wetland, green roof, or riparian area tends to appreciate as the ecosystem matures and approaches a state of equilibrium.

As the benefits of nature-based solutions become more recognized, the value provided by natural and naturalized assets become better understood, tracked, and incorporated into decision making.