Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are embedded in climate-adaptation, disaster-risk-reduction, biodiversity, and water-management agendas. As climate change intensifies floods, droughts, heat, and water scarcity, NbS can strengthen water security and social, ecological, and economic resilience. Moving from promising interventions to transformative change requires credible evidence at decision-relevant scales: where, when, and for whom NbS work; how performance changes under compound hazards and future climates; how benefits and burdens are distributed; and which governance, finance, and stewardship arrangements sustain outcomes beyond pilots.
This session examines how NbS can move from isolated interventions towards interconnected portfolios and system-wide pathways for climate-resilient landscapes. We welcome inter- and transdisciplinary contributions that:
• quantify performance, uncertainty, thresholds, failure modes, and long-term change using monitoring, experiments, modeling, or Earth observation;
• improve spatial targeting, design, and adaptive management through integrated models, AI, digital twins, multi-criteria assessment, or other decision-support approaches;
• evaluate NbS portfolios and hybrid green-grey systems under floods, droughts, heat, water scarcity, erosion, and compound or cascading risks, including lifecycle cost-effectiveness across NbS, grey, and hybrid options (investment, maintenance, and replacement costs);
• assess co-benefits and trade-offs for water security, biodiversity, carbon, health, livelihoods, and infrastructure, including distributional equity and maladaptation;
• investigate multi-level and cross-sector co-creation, Indigenous and local knowledge, governance, standards, finance, procurement, maintenance, and institutional capacity for implementation and upscaling; and
• share comparative, transferability, or implementation evidence from urban, rural, riverine, coastal, and infrastructure landscapes, including underrepresented regions and negative or inconclusive findings.
We particularly encourage studies integrating at least two dimensions and connecting researchers with practitioners, communities, public authorities, finance actors, infrastructure owners, and decision-makers. Linking Earth-system knowledge with social, economic, and political perspectives, the session aims to advance pathways from individual NbS projects to effective, accountable, and durable system-wide climate and water resilience.