Standards Development

Scope

The stakeholder categories most directly impacted by the proposal among those aforementioned will be:

(1) the Government category, including within this category Cities and Local Administrations, since the NWIP will provide for terminological classifications on NBSs and support local administrators in the comprehension of the NBSs tools at their disposal;

(2) Environmental Stakeholders, who have often highlighted the need of a terminological framework on NBSs. 

Purpose

The proposed WI aims at defining a common reference of Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) terms and definitions.

3.1 Main goals

At European level, EC released the first document on Nature-Based Solutions, Towards an EU Research and Innovation policy agenda for Nature-Based Solutions & Re-Naturing Cities, in 2015. In this document, EC (2015:4) identified four goals that can be addressed by nature-based solutions: Enhancing sustainable urbanisation; Restoring degraded ecosystems, Developing climate change adaptation and mitigation, and Improving risk management and resilience. In the recent doc “EU taxonomy for sustainable activities” EC (2021c) has considered as environmental objectives the following categories: climate change mitigation and adaptation, the sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources, the transition to a circular economy, pollution prevention and control, the protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems. The NWI proposal aims at defining a common reference of Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) terms and definitions in order to support the aforementioned objectives. 

In doing so, most relevant definitions will be taken into account such as:

- EC definition “Solutions that are inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build resilience. Such solutions bring more, and more diverse, nature and natural features and processes into cities, landscapes and seascapes, through locally adapted, resource-efficient and systemic interventions. Naturebased solutions must therefore benefit biodiversity and support the delivery of a range of ecosystem services.”

- IUCN definition “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits”

- UNEA resolution that formally adopted the multilaterally agreed definition of nature-based solutions as ‘actions to protects, conserve, restore, sustainably use and manage natural or modified terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems, which address social, economic and environmental challenges effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being, ecosystem services and resilience and biodiversity benefits.

3.2 Expected benefits and related societal challenges

Based on the identified main goals Somarakis et al. (2019) considered the Ecosystem services provided, noting among the regulation and maintenance: carbon sequestration, flood protection, local climate regulation, water purification, air quality regulation, maintaining populations and habitats, pest and disease control, soil formation and composition, and among those of provisioning services: fisheries and aquaculture, water for drinking, raw (biotic) materials, water for non-drinking purposes, raw materials for energy. In the same vein, a classification has been also performed by WWF (2016) in terms of Ecosystems Services listing the functions of regulation, cultural, provisioning, supporting. 

In the same year, , IUCN (2016) formulated the six major societal challenges addressed by NBS. ( in climate change mitigation and adaptation, disaster risk reduction, water security, economic and social development, human health, and food security. Later in 2020, in the first criterion (NBS effectively addressing societal challenges) of its Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions, IUCN (2020) was based on them, adding a seventh challenge Environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. 

In 2017 EU EKLIPSE Expert Working Group on NBS (Raymond et al. 2017) to define the impact assessment framework for the NBS, they considered ten climate challenges: Contribution of NBS to Climate Resilience, Water Management, Coastal Resilience, Green Space Management (including enhancing/conserving urban biodiversity), Air Quality, Urban Regeneration, Participatory Planning and Governance, Social Justice and Social Cohesion, Public Health and Well-being, and Potential for Economic Opportunities and Green Jobs. 

Recently, EC released “Nature-based solutions: state of the art in EU-funded projects EC” (2020) that takes into consideration the following categories: climate change mitigation, flood mitigation and coastal resilience, improving water quality and waterbody conditions, microclimate regulation and air quality. UNEP (2021) considered expected benefits and classified NBS based on these same aspects.

The most recent EU classification has been proposed in “Evaluating the impact of nature-based solutions: a handbook for practitioners” (2021a), which identified 12 societal challenges that could be addressed by NBS interventions: Climate Resilience, Water Management, Natural and Climate Hazards, Green Space Management, Biodiversity, Air Quality, Place Regeneration, Knowledge and Social Capacity Building for Sustainable Urban Transformation, Participatory Planning and Governance, Social Justice and Social Cohesion, Health and Well-being, New Economic Opportunities and Green Jobs. For each challenge, key performance indicators (KPIs) have been identified and described. Among these, for each challenge, five KPIs have been identified as “recommended” since they are those to be identified at least to have a reliable and comprehensive overview of the produced benefits.