The NbS Fresco©: A collaborative learning tool to raise awareness and engage stakeholders in mainstreaming NbS for water resilience

Mainstreaming Nature-based Solutions (NbS) is vital to translating the EU Water Resilience Strategy (2025) into meaningful action. Yet, bridging the gap between policy design and practical implementation requires not only technical and financial alignment, but also broad social acceptance and participatory governance.

The NbS Fresco©, supported by the Horizon Europe project NBRACER (n°101112836), emerges as an innovative tool designed to foster this social dimension by raising awareness and engagement around NbS. Inspired by the successful Climate Fresk, the NbS Fresco© builds on proven approaches that use visual storytelling and collaborative learning to make complex scientific knowledge accessible and emotionally resonant. Research shows that traditional environmental communication often fails to engage the public effectively because scientific concepts are presented as isolated facts with limited context. Storytelling helps connect logic with emotion, enhances trust, improves information retention, and motivates action.

The NbS Fresco©’s scope currently focuses on three landscapes (urban, rural, and coastal/marine) and the set of 22 NbS covered in the first version of this serious game addresses a variety of water resilience-related solutions. Through a visual, interactive, and collective narrative experience, the Fresco transforms the complex, interdisciplinary science of NbS into an engaging format that empowers participants to understand the systems behind them, recognize their benefits, and build hope and connection to nature. While not a practical training on NbS implementation, the Fresco’s strength lies in fostering social acceptance and stakeholder buy-in, both critical factors for mainstreaming NbS in integrated water management.

Citizen engagement approaches exemplified by the Fresco contribute to integrated governance by democratizing knowledge, encouraging shared learning, and supporting adaptive management through increased awareness. This participatory dimension is essential to aligning societal values with the EU’s water resilience goals and advancing NbS as viable, complementary alternatives to grey infrastructure.

This presentation will introduce and discuss the NbS Fresco©’s potential as a scalable, agile tool to close the implementation gap by building collective intelligence and fostering inclusive dialogue. It underscores the importance of innovative engagement methods in complementing scientific evidence and policy frameworks to accelerate NbS adoption, thereby enhancing water resilience and socio-ecological sustainability across Europe.