Unlimited Cities goes Interlace

Nature base solutions?

Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) refer to actions to sustainably protect, manage and restore ecosystems, addressing societal challenges in an effective and adaptive manner. They simultaneously seek to provide benefits for human well-being and biodiversity.

The NBS concept is characterised by understanding and implementing the multifunctional dimension of natural components in the city, allowing to reconcile nature with the city, beyond an ornamental value.

NBS are a tool that allows us to face multiple challenges in our cities: climate change, disaster risk, economic and social development, human health, food security, water security and biodiversity loss. They provide robust and long-lasting responses in actions related to local ecosystems, which are realised thanks to a dual approach: human well-being and the preservation of local biodiversity.

​

The use of NBS-based strategies in urban areas can improve the quality of life of inhabitants, responding effectively and adaptively to new societal challenges in various fields:

• Mitigation and adaptation to climate change, such as participating in minimising urban heat island effects.

• Reduction of natural hazards such as landslides or floods

• Socio-economic development, through circular ventures based on natural raw materials, or reactivation of neglected areas.

• Human health, for example by improving air quality and providing mental health benefits such as stress reduction.

• Food security, by providing alternatives to urban food production, allowing some independence from increasingly remote and scarce rural agricultural areas.

• Water security, thanks to methods and strategies that allow us to manage and use water efficiently, considering its non-renewable nature.

• Environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, through conservation and regeneration zones even within cities, to maintain a healthy balance in the natural ecosystem.

​

Additionally, NBS require low technology compared to traditional grey infrastructure technical solutions. They are often more economical solutions in the long term, with potentially lower maintenance requirements and an interesting adaptive capacity to the changing climate regime.
These strategies allow cities to adapt to climate change and natural disasters because they are implemented by understanding the principles of natural dynamics and using them to our advantage, making cities resilient spaces. They are also simple and inexpensive, easy to adapt to new challenges, and are themselves resilient and resistant.