Why NBS?
Nature-based Solutions offer a scalable and sustainable approach to improving water quality in vast regions like the Black Sea. Alongside better policy enforcement, they present a promising way to address this challenge. The new construction of tens of thousands of waste-water treatment plants alone would only partially mitigate point-source pollution. Treating all these pollution streams to appropriate standards is infeasible, leaving numerous and widespread pollution sources unaddressed. The core idea of NBS is to leverage nature and natural landscapes to attenuate pollution through biogeochemical cycles. By strategically combining green and grey infrastructure, water quality and other ecosystem services can be enhanced in a cost-effective manner. Beyond water quality improvements, this approach can potentially empower communities and improve infrastructural resilience, which is especially important in the face of climate change (Browder et al., 2019).
Nature-based Solutions support ecosystem services by utilizing natural processes and living systems, thereby ensuring the continued provision of these valuable benefits to human societies. There are four main types of ecosystem services: regulating, cultural, provisioning, and supporting services.
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Regulating services: These services involve ecosystems acting as regulators, such as improving the quality of air and other environmental factors.
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Provisioning services: These services refer to the material or energy outputs that ecosystems provide, including food, water, and various other resources.
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Cultural services: These are the non-material benefits that people gain from ecosystems, like aesthetic enjoyment and psychological well-being.
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Supporting services: These services are the backbone of all other services, as they provide the necessary living spaces and support for plants and animals within the ecosystem.
Green infrastructure and grey infrastructure are two distinct approaches to address environmental challenges. Green infrastructure refers to natural or nature-based solutions that use living systems, such as plants, wetlands, and forests, to manage water, control erosion, improve air quality, and enhance biodiversity. On the other hand, grey infrastructure involves man-made, engineered structures like concrete channels, dams, and pipes to achieve similar goals. In certain applications, Nature-based Solutions (NBS) are superior to grey. NBS leverage natural processes, making them cost-effective and sustainable. They promote biodiversity and provide additional benefits such as recreational space. NBS are flexible and adaptable to changing conditions, including climate change impacts, while grey infrastructure risks becoming obsolete. Overall, NBS offer a more holistic and resilient approach to environmental challenges, fostering a sustainable coexistence between human activities and nature. Table 2‑1 summarizes the benefits of NBS over grey infrastructure (Eisenberg, 2019), (Browder et al., 2019), (Cross et al., 2021).
Table 2-1: Benefits of NBS vs Grey Infrastructure adapted from various reports and studies mentioned above
