Addressing societal challenges through Nature-Based Solutions: How can landscape planning and governance research contribute?

Alberts et al. (2019) Landscape and Urban Planning

This paper explores how river landscape planning and governance research enhance understanding of the ways NbS can alleviate societal challenges. It also presents a conceptual framework for how planning and governance can help assess NbS effectiveness. NbS sometimes take more space and time than tech alternatives, require intensive coordination and cooperation efforts, and altered funding and insurance schemes. However, they provide many advantageous co-benefits. Scientists and policymakers should critically assess the extent to which expected outcomes address the targeted problem, and the resulting benefits and trade-offs. Landscape planning provides robust, salient and legitimate spatial information for this NbS assessment, while governance research provides insights on actors and institutions. Direct article link.