Nature-Based Ocean Solutions

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems to address societal, economic and environmental challenges. Increasingly, NbS feature in adaptation policies and national and international pledges on climate action, sustainable development, biodiversity management, environmental protection and coastal resilience.

Our network links a diverse community of researchers and experts with ocean or blue economy stakeholders: communities; policymakers; the public sector; regulators; non-governmental organisations; engineering consultancies; energy developers.

As a collective, we aim to improve understanding and generate the evidence base for nature-based solutions. NbS's are important in adaptation and mitigation policies that address climate emergencies and loss of biodiversity.

We want to inform adaptive nature-based solutions for ecosystem restoration and management. The aim is to alleviate coastal and marine hazards such as coastal flooding and erosion, habitat degradation and biodiversity loss and changing ocean biochemistry. This will provide healthy ecosystems for climate mitigation, carbon and nutrient management and sustainable food provision.

We want to inform engineering and management practices to enhance community resilience and embed nature-inclusivity in engineering technologies for scalable energy harvesting and renewable energy generation. This will inform the next generation of engineering designs, to be environmentally friendly and have minimal impact on marine and ocean environments. 

To find out more about the Nature-based Ocean Solutions Special Interest Group and what we do, get in touch with group champion Hachem Kassem (Hachem.Kassem@soton.ac.uk) and Vicky Dominguez Almela (V.Dominguez-Almela@soton.ac.uk).

Join the SMMI Community to sign up to this group and our other special interest groups.