Nature-based ways to mitigate disasters
A coastal salt marsh in East Lyme, Conn., along Long Island Sound. Restoring coastal wetlands helps reduce the damage from storms and rising seas associated with global warming. (Photo by Alex756 )
Excerpted from an ecoRI News article by Frank Carini
“A new global assessment of scientific literature led by researchers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst found that nature-based solutions (NBS) are an economically effective method to mitigate risks from a range of disasters, including floods, hurricanes, and heat waves — all which are expected to intensify as the planet continues to warm.
“NBS solutions are interventions where an ecosystem is either preserved, sustainably managed, or restored to provide benefits to society and to nature. For instance, they can mitigate risk from a natural disaster, or facilitate climate mitigation and adaptation. They have emerged in combination with or as an alternative to engineering-based solutions, such as restoring wetlands to address coastal flooding rather than building a seawall.’’