About NURISH

At its core, NURISH moves beyond isolated NbS interventions and instead promotes a regenerative resilience framework that integrates ecological restoration, water circularity, sustainable land management, and community-driven governance. The project supports rural territories in addressing interconnected climate risks—such as droughts, floods, soil degradation, biodiversity loss, and socio-economic vulnerability—through nature-based approaches that restore ecosystem services while strengthening social cohesion and local economies.

NURISH establishes a structured knowledge-exchange ecosystem between rural communities, enabling peer learning, technical capacity building, and policy alignment. Through participatory processes, living labs, and cross-regional collaboration, local actors co-design solutions that are environmentally restorative, socially inclusive, and economically viable. Particular emphasis is placed on water-related NbS, landscape regeneration, and circular resource management, contributing to climate adaptation while enhancing long-term territorial resilience.

The project also works to embed NbS into local and regional governance frameworks, supporting municipalities in aligning with EU climate and biodiversity strategies. By combining demonstration actions, monitoring frameworks, and transferability mechanisms, NURISH ensures that successful practices can be replicated and scaled across Europe. Ultimately, NURISH contributes to a paradigm shift: from reactive climate adaptation toward regenerative rural resilience, where human activities actively restore ecosystems, strengthen adaptive capacity, and create positive feedback loops between nature and society.

Project Objectives

Deploy and scale Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to address climate risks in rural areas, including droughts, floods, soil degradation, and biodiversity loss.
Establish Resilience Hubs and Nodes as living laboratories for co-creation, testing, and demonstration of regenerative, community-driven adaptation pathways.
Strengthen water circularity and ecosystem restoration through integrated landscape management and nature-based water retention, reuse, and soil regeneration practices.
Build governance and institutional capacity to embed NbS into local and regional planning, aligning rural territories with EU climate and biodiversity strategies.
Create a structured knowledge-exchange network that enables peer learning, transferability, and upscaling of regenerative resilience models across Europe.

Methods

Four-phase structured transformation pathway (Design–Competence–Action–Reflection): Rural areas undergo baseline climate risk assessment, co-design tailored interventions, implement NBS pilots, and refine strategies through participatory reflection, resulting in concrete Regenerative Rural Resilience Action Plans (RRR APs) and Roadmaps
Resilience Hub–Node knowledge exchange model: Four demonstrating Resilience Hubs (RHs) test and validate solutions, while five Resilience Nodes (RNs) reapply them through the Reapplication Framework (RAF), enabling structured transfer, adaptation, and scaling of climate resilience strategies
Deployment of digital tools and integrated data systems: The project combines sensor-based monitoring, citizen-generated data, digital platforms, and knowledge repositories to support evidence-based decision-making and real-time assessment of environmental, circularity, and socio-economic impacts
Capacity building and co-creation: Targeted training packages, community engagement processes, and participatory governance approaches strengthen local skills, enabling rural stakeholders to independently design impact chains, resilience pathways, and climate adaptation measures
Pilot demonstration and impact evaluation: Transformative NBS solutions are tested in real-life rural contexts, followed by environmental, socio-economic, and policy impact assessments to validate effectiveness and inform long-term resilience strategies

Barriers

Outmigration and skills drain: The migration of younger, skilled residents to urban areas can reduce local adaptive capacity and slow knowledge retention.
Institutional capacity gaps: Limited technical and administrative capacity in rural authorities may slow implementation and uptake of advanced NBS and digital tools.
Demographic decline and ageing populations: Shrinking and ageing rural communities may limit local workforce availability, innovation uptake, and long-term stewardship of NBS solutions.
Economic vulnerability and risk aversion: Communities dependent on climate-sensitive sectors (e.g., agriculture) may prioritize short-term economic stability over long-term transformative adaptation measures.
Social fragmentation or low civic participation: Limited trust in institutions, weak community networks, or low engagement culture may constrain co-creation processes.

Partners

The NURISH project brings together a consortium of 28 partners from 8 EU Member States (EL, DE, ES, NL, IT, CY, FI, MT) and the UK. It is coordinated by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). The project partners are: ICCS I-Sense, Imperial College London, Fraunhofer, Utrecht University, CIRCE, Bioazul, TECNALIA, IHS Erasmus University Rotterdam, CORE Kentro Kainotomias, BreakEven, Skiathos Municipality, DEYA Skiathos, YDRASPIS, IRIDRA, AKTI Research Center, Athienou Municipality, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, Ranua Municipality, Pohjois-Suomen Biokaasu Oy, Pudasjärven Kehitys Oy, THAMES21 Limited, Essex County Council, Oxfordshire County Council, Municipality of Western Lesvos, Malaga Provincial Council, Acea Ato 5, and the Energy and Water Agency Malta (EWA).