Abstract:
Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are actions that harness nature to help address major societal challenges. The assessment frameworks for NbS proposed in the literature differ in scope and intended use. In 2020, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) introduced their Global Standard for NbS as a framework that can be used by anyone working on different types of NbS. Since research on the applicability of the IUCN Standard remains limited, the aim of this paper is to analyse whether the IUCN Standard may be used as an overarching assessment framework for NbS in river flood management applications and to identify the main differences in content with other NbS-frameworks. This was achieved through a comparison with 29 assessment frameworks for NbS, that are applicable to physical interventions for riverine flood risk reduction. The comparisons showed that the IUCN Standard has the largest breadth in scope of application and may therefore be used as an overarching framework. In addition, we identified a distinction between frameworks for the assessment of project processes (process-oriented) and project results (results-oriented), where the IUCN Standard can be characterized as process-oriented. This implies that the IUCN Standard may be used to assess the processes (e.g. stakeholder engagement and adaptive management) of planned, ongoing or completed NbS projects for a wide variety of environmental contexts and societal challenges. This will help persuade policy makers to consider NbS as one of the solutions in flood management issues, next to or in combination with e.g. engineering solutions or changing land use. We also identified that, while the IUCN Standard is straightforward to use and incorporates stakeholder input, the environmental context specificity as well as guidance depth on resources for assessment can be improved.
摘要:
基于自然的解决方案(NbS)是利用自然来帮助解决重大社会挑战的行动。文献中提出的NbS评估框架在范围和预期用途上有所不同。2020年,国际自然保护联盟(IUCN)推出了NbS全球标准,作为一个框架,任何从事不同类型NbS工作的人都可以使用。由于对IUCN标准适用性的研究仍然有限,本文的目的是分析IUCN标准是否可以用作NbS在河流洪水管理应用中的总体评估框架,并确定与其他NbS框架在内容上的主要差异。这是通过与29个NBS评估框架进行比较来实现的,适用于降低河流洪水风险的物理干预措施。比较表明,IUCN标准的适用范围最大,因此可以用作总体框架。此外,我们确定了项目过程(面向过程)和项目结果(面向结果)评估框架之间的区别,IUCN标准的特点是面向过程。这意味着IUCN标准可用于评估计划,针对各种环境背景和社会挑战的正在进行或已完成的NbS项目。这将有助于说服决策者将NbS视为洪水管理问题的解决方案之一,与工程解决方案或改变土地用途相邻或结合使用。我们还发现,虽然IUCN标准易于使用并包含利益相关者的输入,可以提高环境背景的特殊性以及评估资源的指导深度。