Background: Rethinking Infrastructure for a Changing Climate

Cities and coastal regions are on the front line of climate change, facing more frequent flooding, stronger storm surges, accelerating coastal erosion, rising sea levels, and urban heat. For more than a century, these challenges have largely been addressed through conventional “grey” infrastructure, such as seawalls, levees, and concrete flood barriers. While these structures remain essential, they are often costly to maintain, inflexible under changing climatic conditions, and damaging to surrounding ecosystems.

Nature-based Solutions offer a complementary approach by recognising healthy ecosystems as part of the infrastructure itself. Mangroves reduce wave energy, wetlands store floodwater, and urban green spaces help cool cities. Unlike conventional infrastructure, these living systems can adapt over time while simultaneously supporting biodiversity, storing carbon, improving human well-being, and providing multiple ecosystem services.

Recognising these benefits, Nature-based Solutions have become central to international climate and biodiversity policy. The United Nations Environment Assembly Resolution 5/5 established the first internationally agreed definition of NbS, and the approach is now embedded within the Paris Agreement, the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet implementation continues to lag behind policy ambition. Many projects remain small-scale demonstrations, evidence is fragmented across disciplines and regions, governance pathways remain uncertain, and questions of equity are often overlooked.

Our research addresses this implementation gap by asking not only whether Nature-based Solutions work, but how they can be effectively integrated into infrastructure systems, under what conditions they succeed, and how their benefits can be shared equitably across society.

Research Theme 1; Transforming Urban Infrastructure with Nature-based Solutions

Cities are both highly vulnerable to climate change and uniquely positioned to drive infrastructure innovation. This research examines how Nature-based Solutions can move beyond isolated demonstration projects to become an integral part of urban infrastructure planning, while ensuring that the transition is effective, equitable, and socially supported.

We develop interdisciplinary frameworks that treat cities as interconnected social, ecological, and technological systems. Building on these frameworks, we investigate how governance arrangements, public perceptions, and equity considerations influence the successful implementation of Nature-based Solutions. The research also develops decision-support tools to help governments plan climate-resilient, nature-positive, and equitable urban infrastructure.

Fieldwork on urban greenery in Nanjing, China

Research Theme 2; Transforming Coastal Infrastructure with Nature-based Solutions

Coastal communities face growing risks from sea-level rise, erosion, and extreme weather, while conventional coastal protection is becoming increasingly expensive and environmentally damaging. This research explores nature-integrated coastal defence across a spectrum: from fully natural approaches, such as restored mangroves, wetlands, and coral reefs, to hybrid living approaches that combine these ecosystems with engineered structures.

We investigate how these approaches perform under real-world conditions, examining not only their effectiveness in reducing coastal hazards but also their governance, economic feasibility, and public acceptance. Through comparative field studies across diverse coastal settings, the research identifies where natural solutions suffice, where hybrid approaches are needed, and how both can be integrated into long-term coastal infrastructure and climate adaptation planning.

Left: Fieldwork on mangrove forest in Ubin Island, Singapore. Right: Fieldwork on breakwaters as coastal defence in Sanur, Bali

Research Theme 3; From Scientific Evidence to Policy and Practice

Why do similar Nature-based Solutions succeed in one place but struggle in another? Answering this question requires looking across countries and governance systems rather than focusing on individual case studies.

This research synthesises evidence from multiple regions to identify the environmental, institutional, and social conditions that enable successful implementation of Nature-based Solutions. By combining systematic evidence synthesis with international comparative research, we generate context-sensitive recommendations that support governments, practitioners, and international organisations in designing more effective and equitable infrastructure policies. The findings also contribute to international policy discussions under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Approach

This research is grounded in an integrated theoretical foundation, combining social-ecological systems resilience thinking, socio-technical transition theory, and climate justice perspectives into frameworks that treat infrastructure not as isolated engineering but as part of a coupled human-nature system. It draws on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches, collaborating with researchers across ecology, engineering, planning, economics, and the social sciences, and working alongside governments, practitioners, and international organisations so that scientific evidence is informed by, and useful to, those making real-world decisions.

An important part of this approach is the involvement of local communities in both research and practice. The people who live alongside coastlines, wetlands, and urban green spaces hold valuable knowledge about local risks and values, and are often the ones who sustain nature-based infrastructure over time. Through community engagement and attention to equity, the research aims to support solutions that are socially grounded, inclusive, and durable, helping to connect scientific evidence with effective and equitable infrastructure policy across the Asia-Pacific.

Selected publications

1. Huynh, L. T. M., Lam, R. D., Takama, T., & Gasparatos, A. 2026. Mobilising nature-based solutions (NbS) for coastal protection: Public preferences for hard, soft and hybrid coastal protection measures in Bali, Indonesia. Landscape and Urban Planning, 275, 105732. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2026.105732.
2. Huynh, L.T.M., Su, J. Gasparatos. A. 2025. Differentiated trajectories of ecosystem-based adaptation for urban coastal defence in the Asian-Pacific region: A Biodiversity–Climate–Society nexus perspective. Ocean & Coastal Management. 270, 107799. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2025.107799.
3. Huynh, L.T.M. et al. 2024. Meta-analysis indicates better climate adaptation and mitigation performance of hybrid engineering-natural coastal defence measures. Nature Communications. 15, 2870. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46970-w
4. Wannewitz, M., Ajibade, I., Mach, K.J. Magnan, A, Petzold, J., Huynh L.T.M et al. 2024. Progress and gaps in climate change adaptation in coastal cities across the globe. Nature Cities 1, 610–619. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-024-00106-9
5. Huynh, L.T.M., Gasparatos. A, Su. J, Dam Lam. R, Grant. E, Fukushi. K. 2022. Linking the non-material dimensions of human-nature relations and human wellbeing through a cultural ecosystem services lens. Science Advances. 8 (31). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abn8042
6. Berrang-Ford, L., Huynh, L.T.M et al. 2021. A Systematic Global Stocktake of Evidence on Human Adaptation to Climate Change. Nature Climate Change. 11: 989 – 1000. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01170-y.