Nature-Based Infrastructure (NBI), sometimes referred to as “green infrastructure” or “natural infrastructure”, refers to areas or systems that harness nature to provide infrastructure services for people, the economy, and the environment. It is a Nature-based Solution (NbS) for infrastructure challenges.
This encompasses both naturally occurring ecosystems such as forests, mangroves, wetlands, and grasslands, and hybrid infrastructure that combines engineered or ‘grey’ structures with nature-based solutions, such as rain gardens, green roofs, sustainable urban drainage systems, and porous pavements.
NBI — in essence — means treating nature as an infrastructure asset and valuing the infrastructure services it provides such as flood protection, temperature regulation, and water filtration.
What is the value of NBI?
NBI has a variety of strategic and innovative uses, applicable to a variety of sectors. For example, forests can store carbon, improve soil health, and increase water retention to combat flooding. Meanwhile, mangroves, seagrass, and coral reefs can protect coastlines from erosion, floods and sea level rise. Hybrid infrastructure combines these natural benefits with the best properties of engineered or “grey” infrastructure, seen in rain gardens, green roofs, and integrated water treatment systems.
NBI should be designed to deliver benefits to humans by helping bridge the global infrastructure gap and work towards the sustainable development goals, protect biodiversity and combat nature loss while also providing climate adaptation and mitigation solutions for communities.
Additionally, NBI is also often less expensive to “build”, adding to its attractiveness as an option for meeting infrastructure needs. Given this, NBI can offer long-term value for money, providing a wide range of additional social and economic benefits—from job creation to improved public health.
At the NBI Global Resource Centre, we work to demonstrate the investment case for NBI. Using our Sustainable Asset Valuation (SAVi) methodology to produce an integrated cost-benefit analysis of NBI projects, we identify, demonstrate, and communicate the often overlooked and undervalued benefits of working with nature for the environment, society, and the economy.