6. SCREENING FOR POTENTIAL SYNERGIES IN MEASURES

Policy measures that promote the potential synergies between biodiversity, climate change and pollution objectives can be difficult to identify early in the policy process. Nonetheless, it is relevant to detect the synergy potential in the planning phase through relevant screening processes as well as to identify and address potential risks, impacts and trade-offs. This is both in order to develop and implement such measures when relevant and to enable potential synergies, but also to be able to provide effective monitoring systems and alternative measures, making it possible to discover if the implementation does not provide the expected results.

The identification of potential synergies can be based on targeted frameworks and relevant environmental criteria. Several different initiatives within this field have been developed or are currently being developed working to enhance or identify such criteria and the related synergy potentials.

6.1 Existing tools

The IUCN Standard for NbS provides a framework for designing, adopting, managing and verifying outcomes of NbS, providing a step-by-step process from identifying societal challenges to applying adaptive management.

IUCN (2020)

Numerous tools exist that can contribute to better map and include biodiversity and climate objectives into policy measures and management practices. The tools support mapping and assessing e.g., high value ecosystems, areas prone to flood risk, or impacts of pollution. They can therefore contribute to a sound knowledge foundation for improving synergistic policies and management and support that decisions related to NbS are made on an informed basis. Examples are:

The NbS Evidence Platform

Nature-based Solutions initiative (2022B)

Explore evidence on how effective different nature-based interventions are for addressing climate change impacts
Compare social, economic and ecological effects of different nature-based interventions
Filter by region, country, ecosystem type, intervention type, or type of outcome
Generate maps, graphs and download data
Directly link from science to national policy
https://www.naturebasedsolutionsevidence.info/
https://www.nbspolicyplatform.org/adaptation-planning/adaptation-action-types/nature-based-actions/

The EU horizon funded project RECONECT

Reconect (2022)

Aims at enhancing the European reference framework on Nature-Based Solutions for hydro-meteorological risk reduction by demonstrating, referencing, upscaling and exploiting large-scale NbS in both urban and non-urban areas
https://www.webscada.nl/reconect/measures-new/#!/filters

Toolkit for Ecosystem Service Site-based Assessment (TESSA) V. 2.0

IPBES (2019)

Primarily aimed at conservationists, but has the potential to be used by other practitioners within environmental management

Provides guidance on conducting a preliminary scoping appraisal at a site(s) to understand the important services provided by a site and to whom

Methods for measuring the ecosystem services

The valuation of an ‘alternative state’ in order to compare a current and alternative state of the site and hence estimate the impact of potential or actual changes on the ecosystem services provided

http://tessa.tools/

Nature Map Explorer

Mapping terrestrial areas of significance for conservation and restoration of biodiversity, carbon storage, and other ecosystem services.

https://explorer.naturemap.earth/map

United Nations Biodiversity Lab (UNBL)

UN Biodiversity Lab (2022)

Access to global spatial data to generate insight and impact for conservation and sustainable development
https://unbiodiversitylab.org/maps-of-hope/

ReGreen, an EU project

Nature based solutions in urban areas.
The project aims to advance evidence and tools by systematically modelling ecosystem services and biodiversity and examining synergies and trade-offs between them.
Review and assess evidence, experience, and good practices of NbS, including side effects both positive and negative.
Assessment of the multiple benefits and values of ecosystem services that good NbS practice can provide.

Co-creating together with city authorities the project develops scenarios of NbS interventions that can be used to assess the impacts of NbS in ecosystem models. The impacts include air pollution, urban heat islands, noise, flooding, water quality and biodiversity.

City authorities are the main target group

Other potential tools and models that can help to identify synergies might be found here at International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis:

https://iiasa.ac.at/models-tools-data

The listed tools can contribute to better integrate measures targeting multiple cross-agenda objectives and applying the most appropriate NbS. Focusing on applying NbS and achieving synergies can contribute greatly to reaching the 2030 targets for the Paris agreement, the SDGs and the EU biodiversity strategy.

6.2 An applied framework

A project that can serve as inspiration for how to screen for potential synergies and trade-offs between different objectives is a British project from 2013 conducted by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural affairs.

Environment Agency & Natural England (2013)

The project aimed at ensuring integration of actions to achieve objectives across different EU- and national programmes. To gather the relevant information for the project, the authors used questionnaires, held focus meetings with both internal and external parties and facilitated a workshop. This led to identification of overlaps, interrelationships, synergies, and implications between the different programmes. A table showing the connection between different objectives was developed, outlining both synergies, links and potential conflicts.

Part of the table is shown here to illustrate the setup:

	Programme Objective	Synergy	Significant link	Potential link	Potential conflict
Biodiversity 2020	B1a Better habitat quality	WFD1, WFD3, FCRM3	WFD2	WFD4, FCRM1, FCRM2, FCRM4	FCRM1, FCRM2, FCRM4
	B1b More, bigger, and less fragmented habitats	FCRM3	WFD1, WFD2, WFD3	WFD4, FCRM1, FCRM2, FCRM4	(…)
	B1c Integrated approach to ecosystem	(...)	(...)	(...)	(...)
	(...)	(…)	(…)	(…)	(…)
WFD*	WFD1 Better water quality	B1a, B1c, B3, FCRM3	B1b, B1d, B3	FCRM1, FCRM2	FCRM1, FCRM2
WFD*	(…)	(…)	(…)	(…)	(…)
FCRM**	(…)	(…)	(…)	(…)	(…)

The project applies an ecosystem-based management approach to ensure that objectives are managed and targeted in an integrated way that respects environmental limits and identifies synergies early in the process. Furthermore, it makes it possible to identify the various relevant and potentially overlapping regulations and framework directives with relevance to the project, so that these can be taken into account. An ecosystem-based approach contains three key elements:

Figure 5. The three key elements of the ecosystem based approach.

6.3 The potential for integrating NbS into existing EU policies, strategies and approaches

The EU report ‘Nature-based solutions in Europe: Policy, knowledge and practice for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction’, focuses on how policy makers can implement NbS.

The report provides an overview of the possibilities for integrating NbS into key EU policies:

EU policies, strategies & approaches	Level of NbS support	Type of integration
European Green Deal	Strong	Explicit
Biodiversity Strategy for 2030	Strong	Explicit
Bioeconomy strategy	Medium	Explicit
Forest Strategy	Medium	Implicit
Green Infrastructure Strategy	Strong	Explicit
LULUCF Regulation	Medium	Implicit
Action Plan on the Sendai Framework	Strong	Explicit
Adaptation Strategy	Strong	Explicit
Common Agricultural Policy	Medium	Implicit
Farm-to-Fork Strategy	Medium	Explicit
Water Framework Directive	Medium	Implicit
Floods Directive	Strong	Implicit
Urban Agenda	Medium	Explicit

Table 4: [European Environment Agency (2021): Nature-based solutions in Europe: Policy, knowledge and practice for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Retrieved from: https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/nature-based-solutions-in-europe/

Mapping key objectives from compatible or overlapping strategies against NbS can be a way to provide an overview and make potential synergistic and antagonistic overlaps between different policy agendas apparent. Thereby bridging silos and allowing for better horizontal management of the issues and ensuring that the right stakeholders are identified and get involved in the process.

In the summer of 2022, the European Commission adopted a proposal for an EU regulation on nature restoration. The proposal is one of EU’s initiatives that aims to scale up nature restoration in this decade. The new law will contribute to meet objectives across various EU strategies and policies such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy, the European Climate Law, the Adaptation Strategy, the Farm to Fork Strategy, the Blue Economy Strategy, the Zero Pollution Action Plan, and the European Green Deal investment plan. If implemented it will be an important legal tool, the law can contribute to ensure restoration of terrestrial, coastal, and marine ecosystems.

IEEP et al (2022)