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KLIMAFORSKNING-KLIMAFORSKNING

NATURACT – Nature-based solutions for climate change: upscaling landscape-based climate mitigation and adaptation actions

Alternative title: NATURACT – Naturbaserte løsninger for klimaendringer: oppskalering av landskapbasert løsninger for klimatiltak og klimatilpasning

Awarded: NOK 24.0 mill.

The NATURACT research project focuses on nature-based solutions as agents for large-scale transformations in land use and land cover in vulnerable landscapes. Nature-based solutions (NBS) offer a promising path forward for massive, no-regret solutions that prioritize nature, integrating climate mitigation measures for emissions reduction and adaptation measures to reduce the impacts of climate change. However, leveraging NBS to couple climate mitigation and adaptation actions is not without challenges. They lack widespread implementation, are not being deployed at the necessary scale, and face barriers such as limitations in effectiveness, negative perceptions, and fragmented knowledge, which hinder their broader acceptance. Further to these challenges, NBS for both climate mitigation and adaptation are embedded in the more complex challenge of climate change requiring multi-level and cross-sectoral collaboration between different public actors, private actors, and citizens. Therefore, interdisciplinary approaches are needed to strengthen academic and non-academic collaboration to meet this challenge. In its third year, the NATURACT project has continued to apply the Systems Oriented Design (SOD) methodology at the three case study sites (Hølen, Aurland, and Mesna). The Hølen Guideplan provides an overview of the site specificity of the Hølenelva watershed in Vestby municipality, which is framed by agricultural land and the forest. The Guideplan includes descriptions of climate impacts, cultural landscape characteristics, and the historical evolution of the landscape. Based on feedback from: i) the community engagement event at Garderheim run by landscape master students from AHO, ii) the workshop for local stakeholders at Hølen café, and iii) the workshop with Vestby municipality, desirable futures have been created and the hazards of most concern identified. Hølenelva experiences flooding and reducing this hazard has been identified as particularly important. Preliminary modelling indicates that establishing a series of hundreds of small dams, each with a maximum height of 2 meters, can provide adequate storage capacity for a 200-year flood. Activities at the Aurland case study site have included gigamapping based on the outcomes of the workshops in Undredal. These workshops resulted in visualizations of desirable and undesirable futures, with local stakeholders identifying erosion and flooding of the river as major concerns and pinpointing specific locations for implementing potential NBS. Further to this work, two PhD students from the NATURACT program have continued their detailed studies in Aurland. One of the students, specializing in landscape architecture, is focusing on diagnosing and analyzing the landscape of Undredal. Over the past year, this has involved interviews with local residents, as well as fieldwork across different seasons to observe the changing dynamics of the landscape. The other PhD student working in Aurland, specializing in landslides, has continued monitoring the effect of forests on slope stability at the Ryo test site. Over the summer, an extensive field campaign was conducted with researchers from Italy to carry out in-situ measurements, quantifying the tree root reinforcement effect. Additionally, a questionnaire was administered to explore the risk perception of Aurland’s inhabitants and the professionals working there regarding landslide hazards. Inhabitants’ perceptions are often shaped by historical events, cultural factors, and personal experiences, while professionals rely on scientific assessments and models. Acknowledging and understanding these differences is important for fostering communication between the authorities and citizens to ensure that hazard maps are both scientifically sound and socially accepted. The Mesna watershed is a unique case study site as its hydrology is controlled due to hydroelectric power production. Activities at this case study site began this past year with preliminary scoping as part of the AHO landscape architecture master’s student module on stakeholder involvement and during a joint excursion to specify locations vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Activities to assess the climate mitigation impacts of nature-based solutions that also reduce natural hazard risk have begun, with a post-doctoral student focusing on the Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULCC) scenario selection process as a critical component in future climate modeling activities. Furthermore, a PhD student conducted a scientific literature and policy review on boreal forests. The results indicate that there is scientific consensus on the biophysical impacts of boreal forests on climate, which are dependent on the season. However, despite this consensus, current policies do not account for the actual net climate effects of boreal forests.

Rapid and far-reaching climate action is needed to avoid severe climate change and achieve climate-neutrality before the end of the century. However, current national pledges on mitigation and adaptation are not enough to stay below the Paris Agreement temperature limits and achieve its adaptation goals. To support a greater scale and pace of change, it is becoming necessary to better integrate mitigation measures for emissions reduction and adaptation measures to reduce the impacts of climate change. Nature-based solutions (NBS) are a promising path forward for massive and no-regret solutions. NBS are gaining traction and uptake in both the public and private sector and as such represent a unifying concept to prioritise nature to integrate climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. NATURACT focuses on NBS as an agent for large-scale transformations in land use and land cover in vulnerable landscapes to integrate mitigation measures for emissions reduction and adaptation measures to reduce the impacts of climate change. This is accomplished through interdisciplinary collaboration and the application of an innovative Systems Oriented Design approach that negotiates the complexity of climate change and NBS interventions. NATURACT delivers outputs on NBS to establish their effectiveness for reducing the risk of climate impacts in large-scale landscapes, to quantify regional and global impacts and feedbacks of NBS interventions and policy implications, and to transform attitudes and values towards NBS for adaptation, mitigation and ultimately climate action. The overall goal is to understand the impact, feedbacks, synergies and trade-offs of NBS to recommend their upscaling for optimising climate adaptation and mitigation strategies.

Funding scheme:

KLIMAFORSKNING-KLIMAFORSKNING