Adopting nature-based solutions to improve the climate resilience of local governments

ongoing

Adapting to climate change is a key challenge of local governments. Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer eco-friendly interventions building a sustainable approach in societies, restoring and protecting ecosystems. NBS4LOCAL involves six European regions blending national, regional and county levels, fighting location-specific challenges, offering adaptable practices, and sharing the ambition to promote NbS as an integral part of local level climate change adaptation interventions, ultimately increasing the resilience of local communities. The overall objective is to improve selected policies to support and prioritise NbS, thus turning climate-related support systems to a systematic application of eco-conscious solutions in local interventions, and introducing a framework approach for policy makers and stakeholders to mainstream NbS linked to evaluation, planning, financial schemes and monitoring. For a deeper investigation of thematic solutions, partners form two clusters, one focusing on water management and urban greening, the other on forestry and land use, regularly exchanging ideas to share universally applicable knowledge, methods and practices. Climate-related policies most often apply top-down approaches, while in the case of locally applied NbS, bottom-up initiatives and engaged, highly aware stakeholders have enormous added value. Therefore, NBS4LOCAL relies on intensive stakeholder involvement, collects and shares good practices and applicable measures, reinforces targeted policies and also develops an open-use self-assessment tool, exploring the triggers and criteria of bottom-up NbS initiatives in relevant policy instruments. As a result of interregional knowledge sharing, good practices and potential measures are collected, policy improvements with the highest impact potential are identified, and targeted policies are reinforced via key outputs such as Practical Awareness Guide, adaptable financing schemes and Practical Policy Guide.

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