Understanding the Effectiveness of Coastal Nature-based Solutions: Practitioner-based Learning

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Nature-based solutions (NbS) use nature and natural processes to address societal challenges and protect ecosystems. More specifically, they provide physical risk reduction benefits, they create or maintain habitat and biodiversity, and they provide social and equity benefits to the communities
that interact with and maintain them.

This report summarizes the state of knowledge of this topic in the context of coastal climate adaptation in the United States and identifies numerous challenges and opportunities. Findings are useful for practitioners, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), climate service providers, state regulators, federal agencies, and myriad institutions and researchers engaged with NbS. We address two main Action Areas for NbS implementation: understanding and evaluating effectiveness, and identifying the challenges that can be overcome to accelerate coastal adaptation with NbS.