Unlocking Nature-Based Solutions

The report outlines the challenges of implementing nature-based solutions (NbS) in Indian cities, where rapid urban expansion has increased heat and flood risks. Based on a multi-stakeholder workshop, it identifies systemic barriers across design, finance, governance, operations, and policy. The central conclusion is that NbS efforts in India are currently fragmented and limited to isolated pilots due to the lack of a national or state-level policy framework. The document argues that establishing such a framework is a foundational imperative to provide the legal and operational scaffolding necessary to scale integrated blue-green-gray infrastructure.

• The primary obstacle to scaling nature-based solutions (NbS) in India is the absence of a comprehensive, integrated policy framework at the national or state level, which leaves current efforts fragmented and limited to isolated pilots with inconsistent standards and unclear mandates.
• Implementation challenges, such as poor uptake and weak maintenance, are symptoms of deeper systemic misalignments between governance, financing, and implementation systems.
• To mobilize financial resources for NbS, ecological functions must be assigned economic value, as the co-benefits—such as reduced cooling energy demand, improved groundwater recharge, and lower disaster recovery costs—are often undervalued in financial decision-making.
• The effectiveness of NbS is highly dependent on localized factors, including urban morphology, climate zones, hydrology, and socio-spatial density, necessitating hyperlocal design adaptation.
• Long-term success of NbS is hindered by institutional fragmentation, unclear mandates, and underfunded operations and maintenance (O&M), requiring the embedding of NbS into local stewardship models and cross-departmental coordination.

APA

RMI (2025). Unlocking Nature-Based Solutions. https://rmi.org/resources/unlocking-nature-based-solutions/

Chicago

RMI. Unlocking Nature-Based Solutions. 2025. https://rmi.org/resources/unlocking-nature-based-solutions/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Unlocking Nature-Based Solutions |date=28 August 2025 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/unlocking-nature-based-solutions/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2025unlocking, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Unlocking Nature-Based Solutions}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2025}, month = aug, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/unlocking-nature-based-solutions/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }