• Ecological Resilience: support the conservation, protection and restoration of ecosystems and increase biodiversity through enhanced habitat diversity and the implementation of local protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures.

 

• Physical Resilience: reduce damage to infrastructure and the built environment through the integration of natural elements. These include small-scale interventions such as sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) and large-scale interventions such as the creation of wetlands, mangrove forests, and sand dunes.

 

• Social and Institutional Resilience: mobilise community and cross-sectoral/administrative boundaries through community engagement and the application of structured approaches to informing infrastructure and land-use design with climate hazard data and social vulnerability mapping.

• Financial Resilience: deliver greater cost efficiency through promoting more sustainable supply chains and circular economy principles, as well as supporting greater financial preparedness through cost savings available from avoided costs from future damages

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Tools and Techniques
 

 

Along with supporting various NbS-related projects across Asia, the UCCRTF supports the adoption of nature-positive solutions by developing and applying tools and techniques that drive adaptation and resilience outcomes. Its uptake can be enhanced if cities and communities consider interventions that go beyond project or administrative boundaries to address climate change issues that extend beyond these boundaries, i.e., flood risk management, air quality, water resources management, watershed management, etc.

 

UCCRTF supported the development of the Spatial Data Analysis Explorer (SPADE), a web-based GIS visualization platform, that allows users to overlay various datasets (climate information, socio-economic data, land use, flooding patterns, etc.) on project sites to understand the interaction of the different components on each other. Using SPADE, the trust fund was able to demonstrate how basin-wide modelling and hazard mapping can help with the identification of integrated solutions, including NbS, to address water-related issues and flood impacts.

 

Another tool is the preparation of climate risk and vulnerability assessments (CRVAs) at various scales (national, regional, city level) to determine the specific climate risks affecting an area. When conducting CRVAs, it is important to downscale the data to the smallest geographical unit possible to generate more granular information. Carrying out CRVAs at the project concept stage can determine the combination of traditional and nature-positive solutions that directly respond to the area’s climate risks.  For example, basin-wide modelling of water-related disaster risks under UCCRTF-financed TA 9129 enabled the identification of NbS for promoting smart integrated water management and informed the project design for the Integrated Urban Flood Management Project for the Chennai-Kosasthalaiyar Basin Project.

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Community-led action presents a valuable technique in supporting NbS. NbS are determined by site-specific natural and cultural contexts, highlighting a need for communities to actively participate at all stages of implementation to ensure solutions are both practical and effective in a local context. UCCRTF is piloting community-led projects (CLPs) in eight secondary cities in three countries: Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the Philippines. As part of this work, UCCRTF has supported the formation of Community Stakeholder Groups (CSGs), a key mechanism for ensuring that resilience planning promotes the meaningful participation of women and vulnerable and marginalised groups. By combining community engagement with NbS project development and implementation, planners ensure that NbS projects reflect community needs, and provide the community an opportunity to participate in projects’ long-term management and sustainability. These social benefits are in addition to the significant cost savings of NbS over ‘grey’ solutions.

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Benefits

 

Increasing the application of NbS relies on building a strong business case, which in turn involves quantifying the associated benefits.

 

When compared with grey infrastructure, NbS is sometimes perceived as complex, costly, and uncertain. Shifting this perception requires strong evidence to ‘make the case’ for investment. Monitoring and measuring the impact of NbS can provide evidence for influence. However, several challenges are recognised in quantifying the benefits of NbS. For example,  NbS provides wide-ranging  social, cultural and environmental benefits that   may be difficult to quantify.

 

To address this, a range of frameworks and approaches have been developed to assess the benefits and co-benefits of natural capital and ecosystem services. The report reviews a selection of these approaches to quantify the benefits of NbS projects.

 

A range of indicators and metrics that could be applied to measure the benefits of NbS were collated and presented across the four resilience dimensions (Image 2). The structure of the benefits framework provides the starting point for further refinement of the indicators and metrics to be appropriate for ADB projects. The framework highlights benefits such as increased soil quality, reduced risks to critical urban infrastructure resulting from climate hazards, avoided health costs linked to disasters and flooding, and increased knowledge of urban ecosystems.