NAIAD Policy Briefs

Abstract

The three NAIAD policy briefs were produced from the project's national and European policy roundtables and are addressed to the people who write and apply the rules rather than to the people who model the catchments.

The first brief sets out the case for the insurance value of ecosystems and identifies three priority issues to be resolved: assessing the potential of Nature Based Solutions to reduce risk, closing the funding gaps and financing frameworks that stand between assessment and investment, and integrating insurance systems within wider risk reduction strategies. Its two conclusions — that the risk reduction potential of NBS is real but that the capacity to assess it is unevenly distributed, and that the insurance sector has an opportunity to take a more active role in enabling public and private investment in resilience — frame the two briefs that follow.

The second brief, Engaging insurers to promote nature-based solutions and climate adaptation, concentrates on the sector itself: what insurers, reinsurers and their associations can do within their existing mandates. The third, Enabling implementation of nature-based solutions, addresses the enabling conditions — finance, procurement, evidence and governance — that determine whether a well-assessed strategy reaches construction.