The potential of green infrastructure to meet societal and environmental needs

This project will address some of the research gaps outlined above and contribute new results to strengthen scientific understanding of the potential of NbS. New datasets and technologies will be harnessed to build a fundamental understanding of the key variables affecting NbS efficiency and construct scalable predictive models that can be extrapolated to new geographic locations or climatic conditions. Comprehensive case studies will synthesise engineering and ecological knowledge at national-levels by adapting pre-existing systematic infrastructure assessment approaches to compare NbS to grey solutions in terms of effectiveness, cost-efficiency and resilience. Co-benefits and trade-offs
that would not normally be considered will be documented and situations where hybrid solutions may be optimal will be explored and their potential effects recorded.

Broad global analyses will identify a host of locations (with a focus on the Global South and poorer nations) that would benefit from NbS and have not been heavily researched. Modern data collection technologies and novel earlier results from this project will be used to assess suitability of regions where data was previously scarce in terms of potential NbS effectiveness and other factors. Simulations and broad cost-benefit analyses will be carried out to simulate the wide-ranging effects of a large-scale uptake of NbS in these regions, contrasting them with grey and hybrid alternatives.