Studying Nature-based Solutions with Daniela Rizzi

Introduction:

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are “actions to protect, conserve, restore, sustainably use and manage natural or modified terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems which address social, economic and environmental challenges effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being, ecosystem services, resilience and biodiversity benefits”, as defined by the United Nations Environment Assembly. 

Daniela Rizzi is an architect, urban planner, and Senior Expert on Biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions (NbS) at ICLEI Europe with more than 15 years of experience working on nature-related issues. She presented a masterclass about NbS at UIC Barcelona on 20 January, 2025. In this class, she introduced the concepts, challenges, and opportunities in this area, and presented a few projects funded by the European Union, compiled on the NetworkNature website. The contexts and examples presented provided valuable insights into the real-world application of NbS in different locations.

This report is a reflective insight that combines the concepts presented in Daniela’s masterclass with previous knowledge from other classes, an informal interview with the speaker, and my individual analysis and reflections. 

Key Takeaways and Reflections:

The lesson I take from this class is that NbS are extremely important for preserving nature and human beings. Humanity is at a point where actions must be taken to reverse climate change. It’s not just about reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GGE) but also about achieving carbon negativity. In the words of Daniela herself, “There is no net zero without nature”. Nature-based solutions represent many opportunities, such as biodiversity, a nature-positive economy, climate resilience, ecosystem services, and empowering communities.

One of the most interesting things about NbS is that they can be implemented at any scale: local, national, and regional. They are divided into three categories: type 1) natural areas, type 2) restoration of green areas designed/managed by humans, and type 3) new green areas, where there was no green area before the intervention. They can also be very broad in terms of environments: urban, rural, coastal, forests, wetlands, etc. 

As architects, urban planners, geographers, and others, we can think broadly and implement NbS in many transdisciplinary projects we work on, such as housing, commercial areas, train stations, and so on. Creating natural spaces and protecting the environment can be achieved through both large-scale interventions, like forests, and smaller-scale solutions, such as rain gardens and green roofs. Those small interventions are very powerful as they create a distributed, resilient network that integrates ecological benefits directly into the urban fabric, delivering cumulative impacts where people live, work, and commute.

However, due to the complexity of NbS implementation, this area still faces multiple challenges, including funding, knowledge gaps, standardisation issues, private sector engagement, and difficulties in monitoring and evaluation. The lack of standardization reflects the great diversity of the solutions, species and climates. They are so specific that it becomes very complicated to create standards for implementation and monitor the progress and achievements. The lack of standardization complicates the creation of regulations, while insufficient data on cost savings discourages private companies from investing in NbS due to financial risks.

 

Interview with the Speaker:

When asked whether a specific course is required to work with NbS, Daniela Rizzi answered that no, “we don’t want nature-based solutions to be niche, we want nature-based solutions ideally to be taught in every university, and we want it also even in schools”. So it’s a wide-ranging area and cross-cutting area: “Nature-based solutions is a very broad topic in a way because you can cover many different ecosystems, you can cover many different scales, you can do it within the city, but you can do it also outside the city, in coastal areas, in mangroves, or also in forests, in peatlands, and wetlands”.

She also brought up a few examples of actual implementation, like enterprises or companies that are more specialized in the technical part of it, such as wastewater treatment through nature-based solutions or companies focused on forestry. Or even focusing more on the social aspect of nature-based solutions, engaging citizens, doing stakeholder mapping, and the political side of it, such as how to create policies for nature-based solutions. She gave the example of institutes focused on policy, like the IEEP (Institute for European Environmental Policy) in Brussels or Ecologic in Germany.

When asked about tips for young professionals who want to work with NbS, she mentioned different areas of possible interest to work with: 

• “They can work directly with cities, in a certain city department that is implementing, for example, a wildlife corridor in a city. So, they will work on the design and the implementation or even the maintenance part of it, or the monitoring part of it”.
• “Technical NbS where you have an enterprise focused on green roofs, for example. And how to implement green roofs in different climate regions and situations.”
• “With an NGO, or it can be a cooperative working with NbS”.
• “The agricultural side, for example. There are many initiatives now that are focusing on urban gardening, thinking about different species, crops, and mixing, and also making it nice for pollinators”
• “And also teaching […] this whole area of preparing people to work with NbS is also an area of engagement that people can work with”.

Daniela also said that the area of monitoring of NbS with the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will grow exponentially: 

“I think that this field of how nature-based solutions can be upscaled with the use of AI is probably a field that will grow very fast. The reason is that we need to accelerate how we assess the impact of the interventions. We cannot do that very, very slowly anymore. We need to gain a little bit of speed there so that we have proof of the impact. A lot of solutions they will not deliver in one month; it takes time to make sure that they are giving the benefits […]; with AI and sensors, we might have an acceleration of understanding in real time what is happening, and then we can also make decisions on how to optimize the setting.

Maybe you get information that these trees there are not reacting as they should, or they are having difficulties that you did not foresee, and if you are seeing that in real-time, you can then substitute. So, I think that AI might also change the way we plan and adjust the designs, and it can help us to gain speed in decisions and it can also help us upscale”.

Analysis of Interview Insights:

Reflecting on my interview with Daniela, it was very interesting to see how many possibilities there are to work with NbS, both in different areas and specialisations and in different organisations. It makes me think that even if you are not working directly with NbS, you can incorporate them into different situations and projects. And since it’s an area in exponential growth, maybe it’s worth being more specialised if it is one’s interest.

Also, the section in which she exemplified the use of AI for monitoring made me wonder about the difficulties of monitoring and evaluating the impacts… how every implementation of NbS is unique depending on the soil, climate, watering, biodiversity present, and so many other factors like the time it takes for the solution to achieve maturity. But I also have now an insight into how this gap presents a big opportunity and how it could become true: more research must be done.

 

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the lecture was essential for understanding the several functions and applications of NbS and the diverse career opportunities in the field. The class was also important in understanding the role of NbS in creating a resilient and adaptive city that can cope with and resist extreme events and mitigate climate change and the complexities of implementing NbS, including Daniela’s perspectives on using AI as a monitoring tool.

 

UIC Barcelona, 10th February 2025

A reflective expert insights report by Raquel Guidolin

Student at UIC Barcelona
Urban Resilience for Sustainability Transitions Master’s Programme (2024-2025)