Increasing infrastructure resilience with nature-based solutions (NbS)

As  greenhouse  gas  emissions  continue  to  rise,  climate  change  impacts  are  becoming  more  acute  and frequent, driving the need to ensure climate resilience in infrastructure investments across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). There is general recognition and growing awareness that Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can play an important role in increasing climate change resilience and ensuring the delivery of sustainable infrastructure services. However, NbS have not been widely deployed to enhance climate resilience in infrastructure projects in LAC and in addition, the private sector has not fully engaged or invested in the use of NbS. There exists a large gap to fill between academic research and practical application. 

This report offers a 12-step process for developpers of NbS in LAC:

1. Define the problem;
2. Establish the project team and define governance;
3. Define the project goal and objective;
4. Identify the suite of potential solutions;
5. Multi-criteria analysis;
6. Technical assessments;
7. Economic assessment;
8. Financial structuring;
9. Policy & permitting;
10. Design & implementation plan;
11. Operations & maintenance plan;
12. Monitoring & evaluation plan.