About NATURE-DEMO

Climate change intensifies natural hazards that threaten European critical infrastructure, including floods, landslides, droughts, and wildfires. Traditional grey infrastructure solutions are proven to be costly, inflexible, and environmentally degrading. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) harness natural processes, offering sustainable alternatives that benefit climate adaptation, biodiversity enhancement, and community wellbeing. 

Despite their potential, barriers prevent widespread adoption. Infrastructure managers often lack access to information about which solutions are effective in specific contexts. Cost-benefit evidence remains fragmented. Design guidance and monitoring protocols are inconsistent. Digital tools integrating NbS into planning workflows are underdeveloped. 

NATURE-DEMO addresses these challenges through knowledge synthesis, digital innovation, demonstration and capacity building to accelerate NbS adoption for climate-resilient infrastructure. The project systematically catalogues NbS for infrastructure protection, develops accessible digital platforms and decision support tools, demonstrates implementation at real sites across diverse European conditions, establishes standardised monitoring frameworks, and builds capacity among infrastructure managers and local authorities.

NATURE-DEMO Objectives

  • Demonstrate and validate Nature-based Solutions performance through real-world implementation at diverse infrastructure sites, generating empirical evidence on effectiveness, costs, co-benefits and practical implementation considerations across varied European climatic and geographical conditions.
  • Build institutional and professional capacity for NbS implementation among infrastructure managers, local authorities and communities through targeted training, knowledge exchange and transferable implementation models.

NATURE-DEMO Methods

  • Analyse and catalogue Nature-based Solutions (NbS) applicable to critical infrastructure protection, documenting their effectiveness against different climate hazards, implementation requirements, costs and co-benefits.
  • Develop accessible digital platforms and decision support tools that enable infrastructure managers to identify suitable NbS for their specific contexts and integrate them into planning processes.
  • Demonstrate NbS implementation at real infrastructure sites across diverse European climatic and geographical conditions, generating validated performance data and practical implementation guidance.
  • Establish standardised monitoring frameworks that enable systematic performance assessment and comparison across different NbS types and contexts.
  • Build capacity among infrastructure managers, local authorities and communities through training, knowledge exchange and replicable implementation models.

Potential Barriers

  •  Limited understanding among infrastructure managers of available NbS options, their applicability to specific hazards, and their performance compared to traditional grey infrastructure
  • Absence of technical standards and design guidelines for NbS in infrastructure regulations, creating regulatory uncertainty
  • Procurement frameworks and planning procedures designed for grey infrastructure that do not accommodate NbS characteristics
  • Difficulty quantifying and monetizing ecosystem service co-benefits in conventional cost-benefit analyses
  • Insufficient cross-sectoral collaboration between infrastructure, environmental and community stakeholders
  • Risk-averse decision-making cultures in infrastructure sectors favoring proven traditional approaches over innovative solutions

Funding

Funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No. 101157448. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. Project number: 101157448 Project name: Nature-Based Solutions for Demonstrating Climate-Resilient Critical Infrastructure Project acronym: NATURE-DEMO Call: HORIZON-MISS-2023-CLIMA-01 Topic: HORIZON-MISS-2023-CLIMA-01-02 Type of action: HORIZON Innovation Actions Granting authority: European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA)