This report empirically examines the determinants of private participation in flood mitigation programs that use a payment for ecosystem services (PES) framework and suggests improved PES program designs and enhancements to their flood mitigation effectiveness. It offers evidence suggesting income from farming and potential participants' past experiences with PES programs may increase participation in programs aiming to mitigate flooding and that in turn could reduce economic damages from flooding impacts.

Despite growing interest and investment in nature-based solutions such as living shorelines in the United States, it has been difficult to expand their use. One major hurdle is permitting challenges. Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia are three states where living shoreline installations have increased. We examined what policy conditions exist in these locations to enable project permitting, as well as how to address any remaining hurdles.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) address societal challenges by managing ecosystems to provide environmental and human benefits. This report assesses 27 publicly accessible databases on NBS research and projects, highlighting their utility as well as limitations and gaps in coverage. Key recommendations include making databases downloadable, adding standardized geographic and project attributes, and improving measurement of effectiveness. Better data accessibility and consistency are essential for developing design standards and scaling up NBS implementation.

Debt-for-nature swaps on a grand scale could slow climate change and promote economic growth in the Global South.

Debt distress, biodiversity loss and climate change are interconnected crises for developing countries. A task force of multilateral development banks and environmental institutions is convening a task force to establish a framework to ameliorate these crises by reforming debt-for-nature swaps. The authors of this Policy Forum identify four reforms that should underpin the new framework.

Mangrove ecosystems provide numerous benefits to both people and nature, including providing important habitat for wildlife species, nursery habitat for fish and shellfish, recreational opportunities, and protection for coastal communities. This evidence library synthesizes the scientific literature and expert knowledge to share information on what is known—and not known—about how storm-induced changes to mangrove ecosystems might impact mangrove ecosystem services.

This comprehensive resource, created in collaboration with the US Department of the Interior, is a first-of-its-kind reference for implementing nature-based solutions. Nature-based solutions are actions to protect, sustainably manage or restore natural or modified ecosystems to address societal challenges—including climate change—in ways that help people and the environment. Examples cited in the Roadmap range from urban stormwater and runoff management to prescribed burns to living shorelines to restoration of various ecosystems.

The $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) in the Inflation Reduction Act—particularly the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund and $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator—represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to leverage private capital for investments in environmental infrastructure and nature-based solutions, but the groundwork needs to be laid now. This document summarizes the relevant GGRF funds and their applicability for nature-based solutions.

There has been unprecedented recent government investment in nature-based solutions. This document lays out a vision that describes why nature-based solutions are relevant and important to green banks' and community development financial institutions' climate- and community-driven missions, and what types of projects these institutions might support.

Natural and working lands (NWLs) provide many benefits to people, including storing greenhouse gases (GHGs), supporting biodiversity, and generating other ecosystem services. Management of NWLs can influence their condition and function and therefore the benefits they provide. This project surveys the synthesis literature to assess how management actions on various types of NWLs affect biodiversity and GHG outcomes. This information can help to determine how to best manage these lands to contribute to both biodiversity and climate solutions in the United States.