BONN, Germany (Landscape News) — Five key points to consider in the new U.N. World Water Development Report.

1. Healthy ecosystems contribute to better water quality. Ecological processes driven by vegetation and soils play a big role in storing, moving and transforming water. Degraded ecosystems are a major cause of water problems worldwide.
2. Nature-based solutions (NBS) use and imitate natural processes to increase water availability and quality, and reduce risks from natural disasters and climate change.
3. NBS for water also create a number of important social, environmental and economic co-benefits, such as food and energy security, human health and livelihoods, sustainable economic growth, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity.
4. NBS include “green infrastructure”, which can substitute or work with built “grey infrastructure” to improve water management system performance and economy. So far, water management is still largely dominated by grey infrastructure, and the potential for green infrastructure alternatives is under-utilized.
5. Business-as-usual won’t provide water security or allow us to meet the water-related U.N. Sustainable Development Goals: we need to look beyond conventional approaches to water management, and approaches like NBS, while not a panacea, can contribute a lot to the development of more sustainable solutions.

Read the full report here:

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