BWN

The overall objective of Building with Nature is to make coasts, estuaries and catchments of the North Sea Region more adaptable and resilient to the effects of climate change.

Building with Nature has different ways to achieve this objective

creating joint transnational monitoring program

use state-of-the-art analysis methods

develop improved designs and business cases.

Within the project we defined seven coastal and six catchment living laboratories. Here we generate the evidence-base that is currently lacking to incorporate building with nature solutions in national policy and investment programs.

These laboratories comprise large-scale existing investment projects. The Building with Nature project leverages and enriches these investment projects with:

transnational best practice

performance monitoring and co-analysis

cost-benefit analysis and

business case generation.

The project is still ongoing. The website shows the existance of several living laboratories (pilot sites): 4 for Estuaries, rivers and lakes and 12 for Coastal site

The project is testing natural tools for water management to limit soil erosion. Referring to coasts: this project aims to reduce engineering costs and gain advantages of mud sedimentation and saline agriculture. To improve the effectiveness of the flood-protection measures, coastal zone managers are attempting to understand regional morphologic differences with respect to nourishment and hydrodynamic forcing. Referring to catchment: the natural solutions to manage flood risk include creating wetlands that will increase flood water storage higher up in the catchment, or placing wooden structures in streams to retain the precipitated water. The project wants to assess the economic, social and environmental benefits of different nature-based solutions.