The unrealized potential of nature-based solutions to address diverse societal challenges in Canada

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Provides a methodology for analyzing NbS project portfolios using AI and geospatial data, useful for assessing multi-benefit potential.

🏢実務担当者:Insights for designing NbS projects that address multiple challenges (climate, biodiversity, water) to attract broader funding.

🏛政策担当者:Evidence that current NbS funding and design are too narrow; suggests policies to incentivize multi-benefit projects.

Abstract Nature-based solutions (NbS) are interventions to protect, manage, and restore ecosystems to address societal challenges such as biodiversity loss or climate change. Despite growing evidence of their effectiveness, understanding NbS potential to concurrently address multiple challenges remains limited. To respond to this gap, we synthesized publicly available data on NbS projects implemented in Canada using a large language model and conducted a geospatial analysis to assess potential environmental outcomes. We identified ∼900 projects over 15 years, primarily funded for one-year terms. Non-profit organizations led most projects, addressing biodiversity loss in wetlands and forests through protection interventions (i.e. Protected Areas). Another proportion of projects were Municipal Government-led aquatic ecosystems restoration projects and Indigenous-led NbS implemented across diverse settings. The geospatial analysis revealed that projects were implemented primarily in areas that lost over 30% of species habitat quality and connectivity over the past three decades. However, protection-focused interventions may not directly tackle these past anthropogenic pressures. Most projects did not address climate change mitigation, yet protection intervention locations stored significant carbon stocks, and restoration and management counterparts had potential for recovery. Few projects addressed climate change adaptation and water challenges, despite remaining moderately exposed to future climate pressures and having the potential to mitigate surface water instability. Thus, despite their potential, NbS typically target a single challenge, suggesting opportunities to improve design and implementation. Diversifying the leadership, funding sources, and the types of ecosystems targeted for NbS may contribute to more holistic interventions and achieving environmental outcomes that cannot be realized in prevailing implementation contexts. Our findings also suggest the need to design context-based future-oriented NbS that coherently tackle past and current anthropogenic pressures while adapting to increasing climate change pressures. Taken together, realizing NbS’s potential to address diverse societal challenges can lead to robust value propositions for sustained funding and benefits.

• openalex https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ae7454first seen 2026-06-17 04:42:51 · last seen 2026-06-17 07:07:07