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Scaling investment in Building with Nature solutions along coasts and rivers

Published on:
  • Aquaculture, fisheries and coastal agriculture
  • Coastal resilience
  • Coastal wetland conservation
  • Integrated delta management

Despite their increasing popularity, investment in scaling of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) along coasts and rivers is lagging behind. This new white paper suggests how to overcome prevailing public and private investment barriers to widespread uptake and application of Building with Nature solutions.

Scaling up public and private investments

Building with Nature solutions integrate NbS in water and marine engineering practice. They offer countries a recipe to harmoniously blend population and economic growth and infrastructure development with climate adaptation and nature preservation. And even better, they come with lower investment costs. Against the background of limited financial possibilities these solutions potentially offer a more attractive and feasible option for infrastructure such as port development and flood protection in comparison with the conventional ‘hard and grey’ infrastructure.

But how to scale up public investments in Nature-based Solutions? And what are innovative financing models that can attract more private investment in Building with Nature? The Whitepaper by the EcoShape network describes the business case for Building with Nature and provides suggestions for how to pave the way for scaling up investments in such solutions. You can also watch a recent webinar (30 minutes) organised by EcoShape to listen to the perspectives of local governments, development finance institutes, and the private sector.

How to deal with uncertainty?

One of the barriers to investing in the Building with Nature approach rather than in traditional ‘grey’ infrastructure solution is caused by the greater perceived uncertainty in the performance and implementation of Building with Nature. To inform practitioners of Building with Nature about the concepts of uncertainty and how to use this as a strength in the dialogue to come to sustainable solutions for coping with future global change related uncertainties, another Whitepaper on Uncertainty has been developed by EcoShape partners.

Wetlands International is one of the partners of EcoShape and has managed and implemented the Building with Nature project in Indonesia in the past 5 years in collaboration with Indonesian and international partners. This project is one of the cases included in this White Paper. We are currently working to scale up the Building with Nature approach in Asia through the ‘Building with Nature Asia’ initiative. Read more.

Download the White Papers:

Whitepaper 'Paving the way for scaling up investment in nature-based solutions along coasts and rivers'

Executive Summary Whitepaper 'Paving the way for scaling up investment in nature-based solutions along coasts and rivers'

White paper Building with Nature – a future proof strategy for coping with a changing and uncertain world