Water as Resource. The Evolution of Nature-Based Solutions and Blue-Green Infrastructures in Iceland.

Water is one of the Icelandic greater resources. Future increases in annual precipitation in middle and high latitudes could boost freshwater availability in the Arctic. All infrastructure, industrial growth, and other sectoral uses in the Arctic depend frequently on a widely dispersed water supply (Instanes, A., Kokorev, V., Janowicz, R., Bruland, O., Sand, K., & Prowse, T., 2016). To manage and balance the various demands placed on land, spatial planning entails creating and implementing policies and processes to control land use and development. When it comes to solving water-related problems, spatial planning can (or should) be crucial  (Bouma, G., & Slob, A., 2013). In that sense, river landscape development for both humans and nature can be significantly aided by nature-based solutions, which are defined as acts that leverage ecosystem processes to fulfill societal demands. However, there are still gaps in our understanding of how to plan and execute NBS at landscape scales (Albert, C., Hack, J., Schmidt, S., & Schröter, B., 2021). The case of Iceland is considered to illustrate a fascinating evolution toward the application of Blue-Green Infrastructures for Sustainable Water Management. Concluded projects as Urriðaholt and new ongoing projects as Grundarfjöður are taken as examples of challenges and opportunities in urban enviornment.