India stands at the crossroads of rapid urbanisation and an escalating climate crisis, where Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can emerge as a powerful ally. This mechanism offers an elegant and economical path to enhanced sustainability, resilience, and overall livability, which cities worldwide are now discovering. As defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), “Nature-based Solutions address societal challenges through actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural and modified ecosystems, benefiting people and nature at the same time.” Within India, examples range from urban wetlands for flood mitigation to green corridors for improved air quality and constructed systems for wastewater treatment. These interventions typically cost just 20-60% of conventional “grey” infrastructure while providing multiple co-benefits, such as, carbon sequestration, biodiversity habitats, and community recreation spaces.
The urgency of such solutions has never been greater. Climate change is intensifying across the country with rising temperatures driving severe heat stress, shifting precipitation patterns, disrupting traditional rainfall cycles, and extreme weather events increasing in frequency and severity. Urban heat islands create temperature spikes of 2-10°C above surrounding areas, while air pollution levels remain 7-8 times higher than WHO guidelines. Meanwhile, annual flood damages average $7.4 billion, with projections reaching $30 billion by 2070. One major concern is the level of public awareness and the applicability of these solutions across different regions. In addition, the scalability of NbS remains constrained by financing gaps, which targeted climate finance could help bridge to strengthen disaster risk reduction efforts.
Recent events of Punjab floods, exacerbated by the loss of natural buffers such as wetlands, highlight how planning failures can create situations where NbS are urgently needed. To address such challenges, cities must invest in infrastructure projects that can withstand the impacts of these disasters and help minimise losses. Typically, Nature-based Solutions fall into the following categories: nature-based infrastructure, green or green/grey infrastructure, blue or blue/green infrastructure, hybrid infrastructure, or natural infrastructure. However, despite demonstrated benefits, the implementation of this infrastructure in Indian cities remains fragmented and small-scale. Three systemic barriers impede scaling due to these barriers. Firstly, Institutional fragmentation across municipal corporations, development authorities, and state agencies prevents coordinated planning. Secondly, financial constraints reflect deeper structural challenges. India needs $840 billion in urban infrastructure investment by 2036, averaging $55 billion annually. Yet current spending remains at roughly half this level, leaving a significant funding gap for NBS-based projects that typically require upfront investment before long-term benefits are realised. Thirdly, technical capacity gaps limit municipal ability to design, implement, and maintain ecological infrastructure. Most urban planning departments lack expertise in ecosystem services valuation, climate adaptation planning, or adhere to specific geographical areas.
As climate change continues to steadily and consistently entrench itself in daily lives, upend livelihoods, displace people, and incur losses and damages to property and assets, among other consequences, NbS can act as natural barriers to these extreme events. These interventions can reduce exposure, stabilise ecosystems, and enhance the resilience of local communities. The deployment of technologies within urban areas, ranging from green infrastructure to green corridors, could provide financial benefits amounting to $170 billion annually. Initiatives such as conserving peatlands in Indonesia, watershed management in Peru, and forest conservation in the United States serve as leading examples that protecting the ecosystem through NbS can reap high returns ranging from $2-$10 for every dollar spent on the project. Investing in NbS is not just environmentally efficient, but also fiscally prudent.
Meanwhile, principal examples in India include the National Forest Policy, the Green India Mission, the National Water Policy, and other central policies that outline guidelines to manage and preserve ecosystem services. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) also oversees the restoration of forests and water bodies, serving as a crucial nature-based solution aimed at protecting natural resources. One such example could be the Kawaki initiative, launched by Kochi Municipal Corporation in 2020, which created community resilience against urban heat islands and flash floods through nature-based solutions. However, all these endeavours have been initiated by the government, relying heavily on public funds.
This limited private participation stems largely from the economic nature of NbS. Economically, NbS function as public goods. Their consumption by one individual does not diminish availability to others, rendering them non-rival, and they remain accessible to all, making them non-excludable. These characteristics, combined with huge upfront costs and misconceptions about low returns, restrict private players’ participation, putting immense pressure on the government to deploy and ensure accessibility to NbS. Nevertheless, as climate change intensifies and does not discriminate, affecting all in equal measures, the role of private players becomes imperative.
Asymmetrical information on returns, central government dominance, and perceived implementation risks have widened the gap between available finance and funding needs for nature-based solutions. Private players could help bridge this gap through innovative financial instruments such as seed capital, equity funds, bonds, and insurance-linked mechanisms, alongside CSR funds targeted at NbS projects with clear performance indicators, aligning private incentives with ecosystem resilience. However, enhanced private engagement requires coordinated government action from both the state and central governments to promote transparency, enable data sharing, define metrics for monetizing ecosystem services, and invest in R&D to catalyse investment, while urban local bodies should strengthen data collection, incentivize green compliance, streamline approval processes, and foster public-private partnerships and co-creation to encourage their involvement in NbS projects.
As the country grapples with extreme events induced by climate change, the need for innovative, environmentally sound, and financially beneficial solutions is greater than ever before. NbS can prove to be an efficient and effective mechanism to enhance resilience against the wrath of intensifying climate change and bring some respite to the country. India is still in transit to achieve its global goals, with 416 million urban dwellers expected to be added by 2050, while rural areas continue to face mounting pressures from erratic monsoons, water scarcity, and land degradation. How India will develop the measures and infrastructure, both in rapidly expanding cities and vulnerable rural landscapes, to withstand these escalating disasters remains a critical challenge. Nature-based solutions indeed provide promising pathways toward climate-resilient communities across rural and urban settings, yet their potential can be realised only if they are scaled up through well-planned and sustained climate-finance investments.
(Views expressed are the authors’ own and don’t necessarily reflect those of ICRIER.)
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