Australian Nature-based Solutions for disaster resilience: addressing barriers to scaling
Synthesising evidence on the effectiveness of nature-based solutions for fire, flood, drought and coastal protection across Australia's Natural Resource Management sector.
Research Cluster
Nature-led Resilience and Nature-based Climate Solutions
Research partners
NRM Regions Australia, Biodiversity Council
Project team
Dr Rachel Morgain (Lead CI, School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts); Sarah Hoyal (Partner Investigator, NRM Regions Australia); Dr Bek Christensen (Partner Investigator, NRM Regions Australia); Ainslie MacDonald (Research Assistant); Dr Judy Bush (Senior DECRA Fellow, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning); Dr Rebecca Morris (CI, School of Biosciences); Lis Ashby (Partner Investigator, Biodiversity Council); Dr Judy Kroo (CI, Asia Institute, Faculty of Arts); Dr Erica Marshall (CI, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences); Professor Trent Penman (CI, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences)
Contact
Project summary
Nature-based solutions offer significant opportunities for biodiversity restoration while building resilience for human communities. Yet in regional Australia, adoption remains limited and is not generally rolled out on the landscape scales needed to maximise effectiveness. This project synthesises evidence on the effectiveness of nature-based solutions for fire, flood, drought and coastal protection across Australia's Natural Resource Management sector with a view to sharing evidence with decision-makers and stakeholders.
What are we interested in?
Nature-based solutions offer significant opportunities to scale up biodiversity restoration while delivering resilience benefits for human communities and infrastructure. However, in regional Australian landscapes, these approaches are not widely adopted at the scales needed to make a significant difference. A key barrier preventing adoption lies in a perceived lack of quantified evidence for particular nature-based solutions embedded in particular landscapes, as alternatives to hard infrastructure or broad-scale fuel management.
The goals of our project
The research synthesises qualitative and quantitative evidence on effectiveness of nature-based solutions across Australian landscapes.
Outcomes / activities
A report for policy and finance decision-makers, focused on NRM evidence for nature-based solutions effectiveness; scholarly outputs; information to support the NRM, land management and conservation sectors to promote the specific benefits of landscape-level nature-based solutions for different audiences, including through the Biodiversity Council and media articles.