Beyond assuming co-benefits in Nature-based Solutions: Applying the niche concept for optimizing social and ecological outcomes

Urbanization is emerging as one of the major environmental global issues of the 21st century, with strong implications on the health of humans and natural ecosystems. Nature-based Solutions (NbS), broadly defined as cost-effective solutions that are inspired and supported by nature to simultaneously provide several environmental and social benefits, has shown promise in addressing this challenge. However, NbS implementation and assessments often rely on a one-size-fits-all approach, although interventions that maximize one benefit can have no influence on, or even negatively affect others. Furthermore, the current pathways from NbS to various benefits do not rely on a deep understanding of the underlying processes and functional relationships. As a result, the current use of NbS relies on broad targets that exhibit considerable risk of falling short of their objectives, eroding public support in their wake. This project will address these shortcomings by developing and demonstrating a widely applicable, theory-grounded, approach for understanding trade-offs and identifying optimal planning scenarios that maximize co-benefits. Using a mechanistic approach we will assess the effectiveness of NbS across domains in a way that allows mapping, upscaling and predicting NbS implementation outcomes. Innovative use of the ecological niche concept and a set of nature dose-response experiments will enable spatially-explicit multidimensional modelling of biodiversity and health and well-being measures. This will allow us to predict how NbS influence where species will be, and where people will be healthy and happy, equipping us with the tools to achieve coexistence of multiple benefits and social justice. Niche4NbS will demonstrate how to plan NbS that delivers co-benefits and provide planners with a robust tools to identify optimal planning solutions. Beyond the fundamental value Niche4NbS will push the European Commission along its path towards becoming a world leader in NbS.