Nature Based Solutions
Flooding. Extreme heat. Erosion. Storm surge. Water insecurity.
As climate pressures intensify and communities face increasing disruption, the systems we depend on are being pushed beyond their limits. Nature based solutions provide another layer of resilience, using ecosystems and natural processes to reduce hazards, strengthen infrastructure, and create lasting benefits for communities and the environment.
Nature Is Infrastructure
Wetlands can store floodwater. Forests can reduce heat and erosion. Oyster reefs can weaken waves. Vegetation and soils can absorb stormwater. Dunes can buffer coastal communities. When designed strategically, natural systems can perform critical functions that help communities prepare for, withstand, and recover from disruption.
But effective nature based solutions require more than planting trees or restoring habitat. They require science, planning, engineering, community knowledge, and long-term management.
Wetlands soak up floodwaters and release them slowly, reducing peak flows and downstream flooding.
Oyster reefs and marshes dampen wave energy before it reaches land, and rebuild themselves after storms.
Vegetated swales and permeable surfaces let rain infiltrate instead of overwhelming storm drains.
Tree cover lowers temperatures, filters air and water, and reduces energy demand.
The Challenge
Communities are increasingly confronting overlapping pressures, from extreme rainfall and coastal flooding to heat, erosion, drought, and infrastructure stress. When natural systems are degraded and built systems are overwhelmed, disruption spreads quickly across homes, businesses, transportation, utilities, and local economies. Preparing for these risks means looking beyond individual hazards and understanding how people, infrastructure, ecosystems, and hazards interact.
Sources: Rebuild by Design, Atlas of Disaster · PwC, building on World Economic Forum research · World Bank.
Storm surge, erosion, sea-level rise, and coastal flooding threaten communities and critical infrastructure.
Extreme rainfall can overwhelm drainage systems, damage property, and disrupt essential services.
Urban development and the loss of vegetation can intensify heat exposure and create dangerous conditions.
When wetlands, forests, soils, and waterways are degraded, communities lose natural protection and ecological services.
Explore the Data
Forests and other vegetation slow runoff, stabilize slopes, shade communities and hold carbon. This live map from Global Nature Watch shows tree cover in 2010, tree cover loss from 2001 to 2025, and recent tree cover gain. Zoom to any region, switch layers on and off, or search for a place to see how its landscape has changed.
Map and data: Global Nature Watch, shown here as published by that service. Layers and dates are controlled in the map. Open the full map in a new tab for a larger view.
The Opportunity
Nature based solutions work with natural processes to address environmental and disaster risks while producing additional ecological, social, and economic benefits. Rather than treating nature as something separate from infrastructure, we look at how natural systems can become part of a broader resilience strategy.
Manage flooding, erosion, heat, stormwater, and other hazards.
Restore wetlands, watersheds, forests, coastal habitats, and other natural systems.
Create healthier, more accessible, and more resilient places.
Generate benefits that extend beyond a single hazard or project.
Where Nature Can Reduce Risk
Nature based solutions are not one-size-fits-all. The right intervention depends on the hazard, landscape, community, infrastructure, ecosystem, and desired outcomes.
Living shorelines · oyster reefs · dunes · marsh restoration. Natural coastal systems help reduce wave energy, stabilize shorelines, and strengthen communities facing coastal hazards.
Explore Coastal Resilience →Wetlands · bioswales · rain gardens · floodplain restoration. Strategically designed landscapes slow, store, and infiltrate stormwater while reducing pressure on conventional drainage.
Explore Flood Resilience →Urban forests · green corridors · green roofs · shade infrastructure. Vegetation and connected green spaces help address heat, stormwater, and quality-of-life challenges.
Explore Urban Resilience →Wetlands · riparian restoration · forests · watershed restoration. Healthy ecosystems support water quality, flood management, biodiversity, and community resilience.
Explore Watershed Resilience →Our Approach
Effective nature based solutions begin with understanding the system. We combine spatial analysis, environmental science, climate information, disaster risk reduction, engineering considerations, and community knowledge to identify where nature can provide measurable resilience benefits.
We examine hazards, exposure, vulnerability, ecological conditions, infrastructure, and community needs to understand where risk is concentrated.
We identify opportunities where natural systems can reduce risk, complement infrastructure, or provide additional resilience benefits.
We help translate resilience strategies into implementable pathways that consider planning, design, policy, funding, and long-term management.
We develop monitoring and evaluation approaches that examine ecological performance, hazard reduction, and long-term resilience outcomes.
Clients can enter this cycle at any stage, whether that means assessing risk for the first time or measuring the performance of a system already in place.
Nature + Infrastructure
Communities rarely face a choice between "nature" and "infrastructure." The strongest resilience strategies combine both: wetlands complementing drainage systems, living shorelines complementing coastal infrastructure, urban trees complementing heat management strategies.
Wetlands · forests · soils · vegetation · waterways
Drainage · roads · flood protection · utilities · buildings
Risk analysis · GIS · climate data · engineering · community knowledge
The Science of Implementation
A successful project isn't measured by how much vegetation was planted or how many acres were restored. It's measured by what the system can do: Can it reduce exposure? Manage water? Withstand changing conditions? Complement existing infrastructure? Continue performing over time? Our approach connects ecological function with measurable resilience outcomes.
Understanding ecosystem structure, function, and restoration potential.
Accounting for changing hazards and future conditions.
Understanding how water moves, accumulates, infiltrates, and flows.
Identifying where risks and opportunities intersect.
Connecting environmental interventions to exposure, vulnerability, and resilience.
Measuring whether interventions deliver intended outcomes.
Nature Based Strategies
Nature based solutions become powerful when they are connected to specific places, hazards, and outcomes. Every project starts with the same question: what did this land do before we paved it over?
The Evidence
These systems are competitive on cost, deliver public benefits gray infrastructure doesn't, and are increasingly required by funders and regulators.
Sources: National Institute of Building Sciences, Mitigation Saves · Naturally Resilient Communities.
Multiple Benefits
One of the greatest advantages of nature based solutions is that they can address more than one problem at the same time.
Reduce and manage stormwater and flood exposure.
Restore ecological function and create habitat.
Filter pollutants and improve watershed health.
Provide shade and reduce localized heat.
Create healthier and more usable public spaces.
Help reduce disruption and create additional economic value.
Built for Change
Climate conditions, ecosystems, communities, and infrastructure change over time. Nature based solutions therefore require long-term thinking. Our work considers not only how an intervention performs today, but how it can be monitored, maintained, adapted, and improved as conditions change.
Design for changing conditions rather than assuming the future will look like the past.
Establish indicators that allow performance to be evaluated over time.
Consider maintenance, governance, funding, and stewardship from the beginning.
Why Disaster Science
Nature based solutions exist at the intersection of environmental systems and human systems. A wetland does not exist in isolation from the people living beside it. A shoreline does not exist separately from the infrastructure behind it. A watershed does not stop at a jurisdictional boundary. And a disaster does not affect only one system at a time.
We approach nature based solutions through a disaster risk lens that connects hazards, exposure, vulnerability, ecosystems, infrastructure, and communities. The goal isn't simply to restore nature.
Whether you're assessing climate exposure, planning a resilience project, or looking for ways to integrate ecological systems into existing infrastructure, the first step is understanding the opportunity.