Q&A with Sara Mason: The Department of the Interior Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap

The nation’s largest manager of public lands is enlisting nature to maximize these lands’ benefits for both people and the environment—with some help from Duke University experts and students.

Explore the Roadmap

The Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), has developed an interactive version of the DOI Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap with a new database of more than 400 case studies. The roadmap provides DOI staff with consistent and credible information for implementing projects that involve nature-based solutions.

Sara Mason, one of the Nicholas Institute experts who led the project, discusses some of the resource’s features and its applications for the Department of the Interior and beyond.

Q: What exactly are nature-based solutions, and how can they help address socio-environmental challenges such as climate change?

Nature-based solutions is a broad term that can be used to describe any use of land restoration, protection, or management in a way that provides beneficial outcomes to both people and nature. So this includes things like installing rain gardens in urban areas to help control stormwater, large scale forest restoration that helps mitigate wildfire risk, or installing oyster reefs along a coast to help control erosion on the shore. Many people are turning to nature-based solutions to help enhance both ecosystems’ and human communities’ resilience to hazards associated with climate change like floods, fires, or rising sea levels. The roadmap is designed to make it easier to identify and implement nature-based solutions that achieve various goals, whether those are related to climate adaptation, ecological outcomes, or societal needs.

Q: What are some of the key considerations when deciding whether to use nature-based solutions, more traditional hard infrastructure or a hybrid approach?

There is no one-size-fits-all approach when designing infrastructure projects, so deciding whether to use a gray, green, or hybrid approach really depends on the project location, context, and relevant stakeholders. For example, some nature-based (green infrastructure) approaches require a certain amount of space to effectively deliver solutions, so a gray or hybrid solution might be better in cases where space is limited. Salt marshes are known to help reduce coastal flooding during storms, but the size and structure of the marsh can make a big difference in terms of how much that flood reduction might be. On a coastline where there is limited space between the ocean and nearby infrastructure, a green-gray hybrid of a salt marsh, living shoreline, and nearby breakwater might be needed. The roadmap provides context to help practitioners at DOI and elsewhere understand how nature-based solutions might replace or complement a gray infrastructure approach.

Q: The roadmap now includes hundreds of case studies showing how nature-based solutions are being implemented throughout the United States and abroad. What are a couple of particularly noteworthy examples that stood out to you?

We gathered these case studies so that practitioners could be informed and inspired by concrete examples of nature-based solutions in action. Once you start exploring them, it’s hard to stop! I’ll name two that exemplify very different types of nature-based solutions, but both really focus on creative thinking and involvement of stakeholders to design a project that truly provides benefits to both human and natural communities.

The first is Exploration Green, a project in Clear Lake City, Texas, that transformed a 200-acre golf course into a public park and flood control area. The local water authority purchased the golf course and then conducted an intensive community engagement process to design a robust, locally supported project that not only helps solve an important challenge—flooding—but also provides green space to thousands of residents and visitors while also restoring important habitats like wetlands that can support wildlife.

The other is the Howland Dam Fish Bypass that involved building a nature-based bypass channel around a dam in the Penobscot River to allow Atlantic Salmon movement upstream. The natural channel design was the largest and most complicated of its kind constructed in the U.S., and gives other similar projects an example to look to. Restoring salmon populations is important for both inland and marine ecosystems, but just as important is restoring the health of a species that is culturally important to the Penobscot Nation (who were also collaborators on the project).

About the Roadmap

Nicholas Institute experts Mason, Lydia Olander and Katie Warnell collaborated with DOI colleagues on the digital roadmap. Student assistants Aaron Siegle, Melissa Merritt, Iman Byndloss, Rachel Gold, Finnie Zhao and Allison Barbaro also contributed to the project.

The original PDF version of the roadmap was released last year detailing 29 individual nature-based solutions strategies. DOI Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis announced the updated roadmap during an event at the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan.