From Climate Risk Assessment to the Design of Blue and Green Infrastructure Networks: A Conceptual Framework

Climate change and the current biodiversity crisis are challenging the sustainability of human societies. Nature Based Solutions (NbS) strategically deployed in the landscapes could help reducing the impact of climate risks and help restoring and preserving biodiversity. The NBRACER Horizon Europe project has recently developed a new conceptual framework that connects regional climate risk assessments to the design of scalable networks of blue and green solutions. This framework synthesizes five core components:

• Climate Risk Impact Chains: Mapping hazard-to-risk propagation through environmental and social vulnerabilities, identifying critical intervention points where NbS can reduce exposure and enhance resilience.
• Landscape Functional Units & Archetypes: Decomposing regions into functional units reflecting hydrological, ecological, and socio-economic processes, organized as recurring landscape archetypes. This approach links localized ecosystem functions to broader multi‑risk patterns.
• Meta–Ecosystem Perspective: Viewing interconnected ecosystems across spatial scales, enabling the evaluation of Blue Green Infrastructure (B–GI) networks that deliver cumulative ecosystem services across functional units.
• Ecosystem Service and Hazard Regulation Linkages: Demonstrating how targeted NbS interventions mediate water, energy, and material flows to attenuate hazard impacts and provide co–benefits.
• Network and Scaling Strategy: Moving beyond stand–alone projects that are functionally not linked, our framework supports systemic network solutions aligned with regional adaptation pathways, ensuring replicability and transferability across contexts.

By integrating these elements, the developed conceptual framework guides practitioners and policymakers from risk–mapping to the strategic design of interconnected B–GI networks. It supports the identification of optimal intervention locations, the selection of NbS types suited to specific landscapes, and the assembly of strategies that build long–term resilience. The framework’s logic underpins subsequent developments focused on spatial mapping, scenario quantification, monitoring, and NbS implementation.

This conceptual foundation paves the way for evidence–based, scalable NbS deployment, contributing to regional adaptation pathways and compliance with the EU Adaptation to Climate Change Mission objectives.