1. Introduction

As part of the 2030 vision for a greener Nordic region, the Nordic Council of Ministers has funded a four-year programme on nature-based solutions in the Nordic Region. Nature-based solutions (NbS) are defined by the United Nations and IUCN as "actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits” IUCN (2016). Nature-based solutions encompass many different actions spanning protection, sustainable use, and restoration of ecosystems to maintain and re-establish their services to solve societal challenges such as climate change adaptation, food security, biodiversity loss and climate change mitigation. As such, nature-based solutions are highlighted by both the UN, IPBES and IPCC as a cost-effective way of meeting the Sustainable Development Goals.

More recently, the NbS concept has gained traction in policy and economy, resulting in the development of a global standard designed to guide the implementation of NbS, but also to support a common understanding of NbS in the global user community. Since the NbS concept is becoming increasingly relevant in science, policy and society, there is a need to keep track of and learn from existing solutions, so that future implementation of NbS can maximise benefits across the globe.

The Kunming-Montreal  Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) adopted by the UN convention CBD in 2022 recognises the need for action and sets goals to address the dangerous loss of biodiversity and restoring natural ecosystems including through NbS, where NbS are named explicitly in target 8 and 11. In a declaration from the Ministerial meeting in Helsinki in November 2022, the Nordic Ministers of Climate and Environment have committed to “upscale and mainstream nature-based solutions in terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems in the Nordic Region and to apply nature-based solutions as a viable and beneficial alternative to technological solutions or to be integrated into these, to promote more robust, comprehensive and cost-effective actions” as well as urging “actors in the Nordic countries to make use of the information and reports produced by the Nordic programme for nature-based solutions and apply nature-based solutions actively in the green transition”.

The S-ITUATION project (Sandin et al., 2022) made three main recommendations in order to upscale NbS in the Nordics. First, that there is a need to support capacity-building among practitioners, especially in municipalities. Second, that it is important to create arenas for knowledge exchange and experiences on NbS across the Nordics and globally. Finally, that there is a need to develop more practical guidance on how to plan, design, implement and operationalize NbS, as such arenas and guidance are currently lacking in the Nordics. The completed NCM funded projects (Sandin et al. 2022, Barkved et al. 2024) have paved the way to help develop such practical guidance through the evaluation, mapping, and synthesis of NbS in the Nordic countries, as well as following and learning from eight NbS pilot projects funded by the NCM. The goal has been to make the information and guide operational and available to a wide range of stakeholders, such as practitioners, local authorities, and the public.

The Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM) has, based on these earlier reports and experiences, initiated the GuideNbS project in order to produce a practical online handbook and best-practice toolbox for the practical implementation of NbS in the Nordics (see below). The guide we have produced is based on the previous NCM funded S-ITUATION, S-UMMATION and eight pilot NbS projects. This report summarizes guidance’s and best practices for the practical implementation of NbS across the main societal challenges and across six ecosystem types (coastal areas, cultural landscapes, forests, mountains, urban areas, and freshwater ecosystems, including rivers, lakes and wetlands).