Nature-based climate solutions show real results in poor rural regions
A systematic review of 85 climate adaptation projects across the Global South reveals that nearly all successfully reduced community vulnerability to climate impacts by strengthening ecosystems and improving adaptive capacity. For investors and policymakers backing climate resilience initiatives, the findings provide concrete evidence that nature-based approaches—from forest restoration to wetland conservation—deliver measurable protection where vulnerability is highest.
Originaltitel: Contributions of nature-based solutions to reducing peoples vulnerabilities to climate change across the rural Global South
<p>Nature-based solutions (NbS); working with and enhancing nature to address societal challenges, increasingly feature in climate change adaptation strategies. Despite growing evidence that NbS can reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts in general, understanding of the mechanisms through which this is achieved, particularly in the Global South, is lacking. To address this, we analyse 85 nature-based interventions across the rural Global South, and factors mediating their effectiveness, based on a systematic map of peer-reviewed studies encompassing a wide diversity of ecosystems, climate impacts, and intervention types. We apply an analytical framework of peoples social-ecological vulnerability to climate change, in terms of six pathways of vulnerability reduction: social and ecological exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Most cases (95%) report a reduction in vulnerability, primarily by lowering ecosystem sensitivity to climate impacts (73% of interventions), followed by reducing social sensitivity (52%), reducing ecological exposure (36%), increasing social adaptive capacity (31%), increasing ecological adaptive capacity (19%) and/or reducing social exposure (14%). Our analysis shows that social dimensions of NBS are important mediating factors for equity and effectiveness. This study highlights how understanding the distinct social and ecological pathways by which vulnerability to climate change is reduced can help harness the multiple benefits of working with nature in a warming world.</p>