Flood Resilience Project

Nature-based Solutions (often shortened to NbS) utilise the benefits of thriving ecosystems to support communities, enhance infrastructure, and ensure a resilient and biodiverse future.

By protecting, restoring, and sustainably managing landscapes, NbS can tackle issues such as climate change, disaster risk reduction, food and water security, biodiversity loss, and public health.

These solutions work by enhancing the natural processes and functions of ecosystems, delivering a wide range of benefits. By integrating nature into our responses to societal challenges, NbS provide positive outcomes for people, the economy, and the environment.

NbS can include interventions such as:

• integrating trees and shrubs on farmland to enhance soil health, increase crop resilience, support pollinators, and diversify farm income
• collaborating with traditional custodians to reintroduce cultural burning practices to maintain landscape health, reduce wildfire risk, enhance biodiversity, and preserve cultural heritage
• managing weeds to restore native habitats, support biodiversity, and improve ecosystem health and resilience.

In relation to waterway management, NbS are actions to protect, manage or restore some natural function and resilience in modified systems whilst considering historic and ongoing human-induced change.

NbS offer an approach which aligns with many fundamental principles of waterway management for sustainable catchment outcomes. These principles include the following:

• Vegetation is essential for long-term bank stability, flood resilience, habitat, and water quality, and is best practice for stream and river rehabilitation.
• Erosion is natural, so planning should anticipate it by providing buffers based on river type and expected erosion processes.
• Address the underlying causes of erosion, by restoring disrupted environmental processes.
• Site actions should improve resilience to future floods by restoring natural processes and strengthening riverbanks.
• Only intervene if erosion threatens valuable assets, as natural recovery is often better and less disruptive.
• Prefer catchment-scale approaches using strategic planning and, where space is limited, hybrid solutions that combine hard structures (e.g. rock) with vegetation.

The impact evaluation of NbS under the ALRS scheme will assess:

• flood hazard mitigation on productive land, such as reduced risk of flood-related damage and / or losses
• environmental outcomes, including stream health, water quality, and ecological value
• productivity and economic impacts, like changes in land value and land use practices
• psychosocial benefits, such as improved recovery, resilience, and wellbeing
• amenity improvements, including recreational use of the stream

Delivering Nature-based Solutions is the core business of natural resource management organisations such as NRM North, however, the focus is typically on outcomes for biodiversity and ecosystems. Delivering NbS with a clear focus on reducing climate and disaster risk is less common and, in this context, there is limited robust evidence available in relation to the economic benefits and social impacts of NbS.

This evidence gap poses a challenge in attracting investment to scale-up projects such as these. As a result, traditional ‘grey’ infrastructure such as concrete flood barriers or drainage systems are still used most of the time, even where NbS could offer significant advantages.

The evaluation process undertaken as part of this project is a critical step in identifying which Nature-based Solutions should be used at trial sites. This approach ensures the most effective and impactful interventions are prioritised for implementation.

Following the assessment, the types of NbS implemented may include:

• streamside revegetation and weed management
• access control, for example stock or vehicle exclusion and alternative water points
• riverbank modification and / or realignment for erosion management
• bank armouring using nature-based methods such as rocks and / or logs
• re-engagement of wetlands through removal of levees and / or drains

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If you wish to contact us about the project, please email admin@nrmnorth.org.au