Planning and governing nature-based solutions in river landscapes: Concepts, cases, and insights

Abstract

Nature-based solutions (NBS), understood as actions that use ecosystem processes to address societal needs, can play important roles to future-proof river landscape development for people and nature. However, knowledge gaps exist how NBS can be planned and implemented at landscape scales. This Special Issue brings together insights and experiences from studies of assessing, planning, and implementing NBS in river landscapes in Europe and beyond. It addresses three research fields: (i) NBS effects, looking at the effectiveness of NBS to achieve ecological, social, and/or economic outcomes, (ii) NBS planning, focusing on approaches for planning and designing NBS, and (iii) NBS governance, relating to governance and business models for implementation. The twelve contributions deliver evidence on how NBS outperform conventional, rather technical solutions, provide guidance and tools to operationalize the NBS concept into practice, and showcase successful governance models of NBS in different contexts. The editorial ends with an outlook on further research needs.

Quantifying sediment and particulate phosphorus accumulation in restored floodplain wetlands using beryllium‐7 as a tracer

“…The tracer-based approach demonstrated and tested here offers a powerful new decision support tool for floodplain and wetland restoration planning. Floodplain rivers are a key strategic global resource in terms ecosystem service provision (Tockner & Stanford, 2002) and decision support tools to support their conservation will become increasingly important in the 21st century with growing anthropogenic pressures on aquatic ecosystems (Albert et al, 2021).…”

Potential Approaches to Establishing Harmonious River-human Relationships to Avoid Ugly Divorce

“…Historically the relationships humans have developed with rivers have not produced entirely balanced or mutually beneficial outcomes (Gurnell et al, 2016;Tockner & Stanford, 2002). Overwhelmingly the benefits to humans through the development of, for example, urbanisation, industry and agriculture have been at severe cost/s to the river system and associated environment (Albert et al, 2021;Dunham et al, 2018;Schönach, 2017). The historical evidence clearly points to this.…”

“…This as Wantzen et al, (2016) suggest led to river cultures emerging which included learning how to exploit rivers in ways that underpin the building of communities and social systems as well as fuelling economic development. Based on attitudes that humans can take whatever they want from river systems and their environments without significant consequences from these actions a "separation" of the river-human connectivity further distanced the health of river systems and their environments from society's gaze and concern (Albert et al, 2021;Pereira et al, 2020;Mazur, 2021). This is a historical lesson we need to be reminded of regularly so as not to forget the past over-exploitation and degradation of the environment to prevent continuously repeating disrespectful relationships with river system environments.…”

Deliberating options for nature-based river development: Insights from a participatory multi-criteria evaluation

“…Nature-based solutions (NBS) offer a promising alternative to hydraulic engineering approaches to advance a future-proof river landscape development for people and nature (Albert et al, 2021b). NBS are commonly understood as actions or interventions working with and enhancing nature to address societal challenges such as natural hazards and simultaneously provide environmental, social, and economic benefits (Cohen-Shacham et al, 2016;European Commission, 2015).…”