The United Nations World Water Development Report 2018: Nature-based Solutions for Water

The global demand for water has been increasing at a rate of about 1% per year over the past decades as a function of population growth, economic development and changing consumption patterns, among other factors, and it will continue to grow significantly over the foreseeable future.

At the same time, the global water cycle is intensifying due to climate change, with wetter regions generally becoming wetter and drier regions becoming even drier. Other global changes (e.g., urbanisation, de‐forestation, intensification of agriculture) add to these challenges.

The 2018 Report, Nature-based Solutions for Water, demonstrates how nature‐based solutions (NBS) offer a vital means of moving beyond business‐as‐usual to address many of the world’s water challenges while simultaneously delivering additional benefits vital to all aspects of sustainable development.

NBS can enhance water availability (e.g., soil moisture retention, groundwater recharge), improve water quality (e.g., natural and constructed wetlands, riparian buffer strips), and reduce risks associated with water‐related disasters and climate change (e.g., floodplain restoration, green roofs). Currently, water management remains heavily dominated by traditional, human‐built (i.e. ‘grey’) infrastructure and the enormous potential for NBS remains under‐utilized.