Research need from Focus Group: Assessment criteria, models and indicators in Nature-based Solutions for water management

This research need has been identified in FG 46 on “NBS for water management”. If you want to know more about it, check the final report of the Focus Group

There is a need for a common framework for the qualification and assessment of NBS that are specific to agricultural water management. This framework could result from the adaptation of one of the existing generic frameworks for solutions to societal challenges, or from development from scratch. 

The basic characteristics of the solutions that this framework should have to consider are the effectiveness and the magnitude of the primary effect that the solution seeks (water savings, increased availability). The assessment of its resilience is important as it is a nature-based solution. The nature-based qualification should be based on objective criteria, depending on the extent to which it reproduces natural processes or uses elements from outside the natural environment.

Next is the assessment of benefits, internal and external. On the one hand there are the economic benefits, which ideally should be valued monetarily, on the other hand there are the social benefits and ecosystem services. The necessary research should adapt cost-benefit, cost-effectiveness and market-based analyses, using multi-criteria techniques, to the specific case of agricultural water management solutions.

Three issues must not be forgotten in these analyses:

− solutions involve trade-offs

− the effects must be assessed in the medium and long term, which implies selecting appropriate monitoring mechanisms

− the effects must reach beyond the area where the solution is applied, i.e., territorial, social and environmental scaling-up assessment methods are needed.