nature based solutions presentation

What You Need to Know About Nature-Based Solutions to Climate Change

#ShowYourStripes graphic by Professor Ed Hawkins (University of Reading) https://showyourstripes.info/

What are nature-based solutions?

Nature-based solutions are actions to protect, sustainably manage, or restore natural ecosystems, that address societal challenges such as climate change, human health, food and water security, and disaster risk reduction effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits. For example, a common problem is the flooding in coastal areas that occurs as a result of storm surges and coastal erosion. This challenge, traditionally tackled with manmade (grey) infrastructure such as sea walls or dikes, coastal flooding, can also be addressed by actions that take advantage of ecosystem services such as tree planting. Planting trees that thrive in coastal areas – known as mangroves -- reduces the impact of storms on human lives and economic assets, and provides a habitat for fish, birds and other plants supporting biodiversity.

Do nature-based solutions help fight climate change?

Estimates suggest that nature-based solutions can provide 37% of the mitigation needed until 2030 to achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement. How can this be done? If you plant trees, they’re going to soak up carbon. For example, restoring native forest at the margins of the river to avoid landslides can also act as a carbon sink.  Climate-smart agriculture is another example that enables farmers to retain more carbon in their fields as they produce crops. Decreasing deforestation is another way to benefit from nature-based solutions – for example, by paying farmers not to cut down the forest preserves ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, provision of clean drinking water, and reduction of river sedimentation downstream.

Nature-based solutions also play a key role in climate change adaptation and building resilience in landscapes and communities. Several nature-based solutions are being used by the World Bank to help manage disaster risk and reduce the incidence and impact of flooding, mudslides, and other disasters. They are a cost-effective way of addressing climate change while also addressing biodiversity and land degradation. You can address several problems at once.

But it’s not automatic that everything you plant becomes a nature-based solution that contributes to biodiversity – for example, planting trees that are not from the region and are toxic to local animals would not generate biodiversity benefits.

Estimates suggest that nature-based solutions can provide 37% of the mitigation needed until 2030 to achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement.

Where are World Bank projects incorporating nature-based solutions?

In FY20, the nature-based solutions portfolio of the World Bank included 70 projects– with many focusing on water and disaster risk management. We would like more projects to include nature-based solutions in other topic areas as well. To this end, we have been rolling out training for World Bank staff, with the goal of scaling up country-level support. The World Bank is committed to address the two intersecting global crises the world is experiencing: the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis.

Let me give you a couple of examples: In Burundi, forests have been cleared and crops have been grown on steep hillsides without controlling erosion. As a result, the country has experienced more frequent landslides and floods and these have been made worse by the torrential rains and droughts associated with climate change. We’re supporting a project that is constructing nearly 8,000 hectares of terraces on hillsides, using vegetation at critical points to control soil erosion, increase soil moisture, and reduce runoff. Farmers are planting tree crops, soil-stabilizing grasses and fodder crops to protect topsoil and make the land more productive for farming.

In Colombo, Sri Lanka , we’re supporting a project pioneering the use of urban wetlands as a nature-based solution. Wetlands reduce flood risk by holding excess water, but the holding capacity of Colombo’s wetlands dropped by 40% over a decade. At the same time, climate change and sea-level rise increased the city’s vulnerability to flooding. The project used green and grey infrastructure to restore and protect the wetland and maintain its hydraulic integrity. This reduced flood risk for more than 200,000 city residents and provided the entire city with a better quality of life. The wetlands also sequester carbon and regulate the local climate, which has helped reduce the use of air conditioning near wetland areas. The project improved water quality and wastewater treatment, and the city’s Beddagana wetland has been turned into a park and wildlife sanctuary.

In the Zhejiang Qiandao Lake and Xin’an River Basin, China, we’re supporting integrated pollution and watershed management, to help increase access to improved water supply. The lake is a main source of potable water for many cities along the river basin, but rapid development, agricultural production, and tourism growth have increased water pollution. The project is implementing nature-based solutions such as climate-smart farming, environmentally sustainable forest management, restoration of wetlands and degraded forests, as some of the interventions seeking to improve the water quality in the lake.

All pathways to achieving the Paris Agreement include protection of forests and conservation, restoration, and sustainable use of natural ecosystems. Nature-based solutions offer a way of addressing the climate and biodiversity crises in a synergetic and cost-effective manner.

How do we measure results from nature-based solutions?

An evidence-based approach to managing, and measuring results from, nature-based solutions is paramount. This means monitoring and evaluation throughout the intervention cycle, drawing on science and data, as well as local and indigenous knowledge. What exactly needs measuring? This depends on the societal challenges the nature-based solution set out to address. If the goal is to mitigate climate change, the equations, the protocols, and the systems are well established to measure the results - with carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) being the basic metric used. A ton of CO 2 equivalent sequestered in a restoration project Brazil has the same effect on greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere as a ton of CO 2 sequestered in a reforestation project in Russia.

What is critical is to look beyond climate and to also measure (and monetize – for example through environmental markets) the other benefits that the nature-based solution is delivering. For instance, when it comes to measuring the impact on biodiversity, the task is more complicated and multi-dimensional. Ecosystems are highly complex and dynamic systems; and there is no single high-level metric or a global goal on biodiversity equivalent to keeping the global warming below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in the climate realm. However, projects have a range of indicators available to them, such as trends in (threatened) species populations and the provision of critical ecosystem services – for example water quality and predictability in a watershed that benefitted from restoration of reforestation. Since biodiversity is irreplaceable and its loss may be irreversible (IPBES 2019), project results can be quite localized in nature.

For the World Bank, biodiversity and ecosystem services loss is a development issue and for this reason the institution has invested in nature for more than three decades. At present, we are working with other multilateral development banks to improve the way biodiversity benefits are assessed in development portfolios and in the broader financial markets. The stakes are high. The risks that climate change poses to global development are significant, and so are the risks of global biodiversity and ecosystem loss. All pathways to achieving the Paris Agreement include protection of forests and conservation, restoration, and sustainable use of natural ecosystems. Nature-based solutions offer a way of addressing the climate and biodiversity crises in a synergetic and cost-effective manner.

Read:  Nature Offers Solutions to Climate Risks, Boosts Coastal Livelihoods in India

Read:  What You Need to Know About Oceans and Climate Change

Website:  Climate Explainer Series

Website:  Climate Stories: How Countries and Communities Are Shaping A Sustainable Future

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Perspectives

Accelerating Adaptation

Exploring the promise and limitations of nature-based solutions in the race to adapt to increasing floods and droughts

February 16, 2024

• Introduction
• Key Takeaways
• Download the Report

Evidence shows that nature-based solutions (NbS) deployed strategically and in the right places can reduce the impacts of flood and drought and help communities adapt to a rapidly changing climate. But the full potential of NbS is still poorly understood. A new report from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) explores the promise and limits of such investments and offers planners and funders much-needed guidance on how to effectively harness nature to adapt to both a wetter and drier future. 

FIGURE 1.  Conceptual diagram illustrating different types of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) with potential to address flooding and drought across different landscape types.

NbS can help reduce the risk of flood and drought in one third of the places across the globe where flood and drought hazards are expected to increase due to climate change.

Key Takeaways From the Report

Flooding and drought are at the center of climate impacts.

Water-related hazards like flood and drought are among the most damaging natural disasters. Together, they already impact a fifth of the world’s population, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities and ecosystems.  

Assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that places like central Europe, the eastern United States, central South America and most of the Asia Pacific region will experience an even wetter future defined by more intense storms and flooding; at the same time, the risk of drought is expected to increase across much of the Americas, Europe, southern Africa, and Australia. 

As climate change accelerates and intensifies flood and drought, their societal impacts will also increase unless we can accelerate the adoption of affordable adaptation solutions. 

In the race to adapt, nature can help

It is well documented that NbS can play an important role in mitigating the water-related impacts of climate change and should be a key part of global adaptation strategies. But the synergies, trade-offs, and potential magnitude of NbS impacts on future flood and drought are often poorly understood.  This has led to a lack of clarity around the opportunity for investment and missed chances to scale NbS appropriately.  

New TNC analysis helps to close this knowledge gap, revealing that NbS can help reduce the risk of flood and drought in one third of the places across the globe where flood and drought hazards are expected to increase due to climate change. 

The image below reveals the area of opportunity for NbS to address drought and flood hazard. For instance, protection efforts could  help reduce flood hazards  across more than 14 million square kilometers—equivalent to nearly twice the land area of the contiguous US.

FIGURE 4. Spatial extent of NbS categories (left) and sum of NbS area (right). High hazard areas are identified according to current hazard level (upper tercile) and future hazard change (“increasing” or “uncertain”). See text and Table 1 for information on indicators, data sources and methodology.

Nbs can be powerful, but are often part of an integrated suite of solutions.

Just as important as understanding the potential for NbS to support adaptation efforts is getting clear about their limitations. Like any investment, NbS come with tradeoffs and are not a silver bullet solution to global adaptation challenges.

NbS combined with other flood and drought mitigation solutions like grey infrastructure and early warning systems, however, can support a robust and effective adaptation plan. 

Considering local context is also critical to weighing the synergies and tradeoffs of particular NbS investments. Aquifer recharge during high flow periods, for example, can both reduce the impact of floods and increase water availability longer into dry periods, which could be beneficial in places like California where some communities experience both extreme dry and wet periods. Conversely, although tree planting or reforestation are known to lessen some flood impacts, increasing vegetative cover can also increase evapotranspiration, which may exacerbate drought impacts.

As the analysis explores, understanding the context-specific potential of NbS to address discrete problems (or not) can help planners and funders use NbS more effectively and maximize their impact. 

FIGURE 5. Spectrum of green to gray infrastructure solutions to flood and drought.

Financing a way forward.

To address the impacts of climate change, build more resilient watersheds for people and nature, and advance shared objectives of water security and climate adaptation sectors, we must scale up the adoption of NbS around the world.

A significant barrier to this imperative is securing adaptation funding. While annual spending on climate mitigation is substantial (and growing), funding flows for climate adaptation represent a drop in the bucket and must be increased by at least three to seven times current spending levels by 2030.

FIGURE 6. While annual funding for climate is substantial (left), funding flows for adaptation (center) are comparatively limited and well below the estimated need for adaptation funding (right).

Next steps: the path to resilience.

With the foundational knowledge offered in this report, adaptation planners and funders can more confidently integrate NbS into flood and drought investments.

However, much more is needed to maximize the potential for NbS to build resilience to these increasingly dangerous water-related hazards. Together we must:

Drastically increase the investment in adaptation globally as part of overall climate funding.

Develop additional guidance, tools and protocols that pave the way for integrated adaptation planning.

Enact policies that embed investment in NbS in adaptation planning.

Invest in monitoring and evaluation to help further our understanding about how to best design, implement, and manage NbS for flood and drought.

Integrate NbS into the training and education programs of those managing our land, food, and water systems. 

As the world adapts to the era of climate change, we must find solutions that build resilient, adaptive systems. Nature-based solutions can help.

Explore the promise and limitations of nature-based solutions in the race to adapt to increased flooding and droughts.

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• What is the Nature-based Solutions Initiative and what are nature-based solutions?

What is the Nature-based Solutions Initiative

Who are we.

Founded in 2017, the Nature-based Solutions Initiative is an international and interdisciplinary team of natural and social scientists, mathematicians and economists seeking to apply impactful research to shape policy and practice on nature-based solutions through research, teaching and engagement with policymakers and practitioners.

We are based in the Departments of Biology and Geography (Smith School of Environment and Enterprise), collaborating with engineers, governance and finance experts from across the University of Oxford and beyond, and working closely with international and local NGOs from the conservation and development sectors.

What are Nature-based Solutions?

Nature-based Solutions involve working with nature, as part of nature, to address societal challenges, supporting human well-being and biodiversity locally. They include the protection, restoration or management of natural and semi-natural ecosystems; the sustainable management of aquatic systems and working lands; and integration of nature in and around our cities. They are actions that are underpinned by biodiversity and designed and implemented in a way that respects the rights, values and knowledges of local communities and Indigenous Peoples.

Want to learn more?

If you would like to learn more about the role of NbS in addressing societal challenges, we recommend you:

• Read our publications
• Attend our course
• Watch our animation
• Come to our conference
• Explore our global map of good practice nature-based solutions
• Use our Knowledge Hub for Scaling-up Nature-based Solutions in the UK (coming soon)

We also strongly encourage you read about the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions

NbS Guidelines

Make sure you read these evidence-based guidelines around what constitutes successful, sustainable NbS.

Examples of Nature-based Solutions

Restoring and protecting forests and wetlands in catchments

Protecting or restoring forests and wetlands (e.g. peatlands) in catchments can secure and regulate water supplies, support production of forest products, and protect communities and infrastructure from floods, soil erosion and landslides.

Bringing nature into cities

Creating green roofs and walls and planting trees in cities can moderate the impacts of heatwaves, capture storm water and abate pollution. Such measures also have positive outcomes for mental and physical health.

Coastal habitat restoration

Protecting or restoring coastal ecosystems (mangroves, reefs and salt marshes) protects communities and infrastructure from storm surges and erosion. Coastal habitats, especially mangroves, are particularly good at sequestering carbon, so restoration also contributes to climate change mitigation.

Animations on Nature-based Solutions

What are nature-based solutions to climate change?

The future we can and must chose: nature-based solutions

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Climate Solutions Partnership

Nature-based solutions (nbs).

Jump to section:

Key Metrics

Nbs policy accelerator, nbs corporate guidebook.

India – Scaling Landscape Restoration

Mexico – Scaling NBS

Roughly $44 trillion of global GDP depends on nature. And yet, private and public sector funding for Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) falls woefully short. In 2021, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) determined that “investment in NBS ought to at least triple in real terms by 2030 and increase four-fold by 2050 if the world is to meets its climate change, biodiversity and land degradation targets.”

Financial institutions need data to direct their funds efficiently, and companies require a blueprint to invest in nature effectively. Policy makers need to understand the impact of enabling policies to catalyze the flow of private finance toward NBS. People must realize that restoring nature can simultaneously combat nature degradation while delivering economic and social benefits to increase buy-in from the stakeholders who will implement NBS on the ground.

Without full, systemic support from private and public actors, NBS—from conserving forests to enhancing efficiency of water usage—won’t be able to scale at the rate needed.

The Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) Pillar consists of 36 projects, both local and global in scope. The pillar seeks to build and scale the private sector NBS marketplace by creating the needed systemic infrastructure to reduce transaction costs and drive higher volumes of NBS activity by the financial and businesses sectors. NBS—such as mangrove restoration or climate-friendly palm oil production—require support on the path to commercial viability by overcoming barriers such as insufficient policy and regulatory frameworks, gaps between demand and supply, and the lack of measurement tools and business cases.

The NBS pillar offers benefits far behind an improved natural environment. Through a workforce development lens, these projects provide practice stills to thousands of people in a rapidly growing field. Cementing nature-positive policy strengthens the  ambition loop  between the public and private sectors. Mainstreaming NBS metrics entrenches the gains made by each project, encouraging all stakeholders to continue the work. Since its inception in 2020, the project has achieved:

• 6,084 stakeholders gained improved capacity or expertise
• 54 policy-makers are alumni of the incentive shifting accelerator program
• 9 innovative NBS incentive policies & barriers identified, analyzed, and disseminated to national and sub-national governments
• 2 NBS incentives created or improved, prompting private sector money to flow to NBS
• 46,816 users viewing GHG data layers within Global Forest Watch, ensuring the data is a common focal point for practitioners around the world

WRI’s NBS Policy Accelerator focuses on two primary objectives.

• Insufficient policy and regulatory frameworks prohibit private finance from flowing to NBS. The NBS Policy Accelerator shifts critical public incentives to enable greater flows of private and blended capital for nature-based solutions.
• Outdated practices plague the sector from supporting the best NBS interventions. The NBS Policy Accelerator implements new and improved, scalable data to align financial institutions with best practices for monitoring, reporting, and verifying NBS. NBS

Through research and partnerships with a multitude of stakeholders, we identify innovative opportunities for public and private actors to establish new norms for funding NBS.

• Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Global
• Maggie Gonzalez , WRI
• Gabrielle Nussbaum , WRI

As of 2023, while there is significant guidance on what types of NBS companies should invest in, there is little practical guidance on how companies should develop NBS strategies. That’s due, in part, to the fact that there is no common definition for NBS within the business sector.

Whether businesses are interested in initiating some positive contribution to nature and nature-based solutions, scaling their current NBS activities or reviewing their NBS strategies, this toolkit will clarify and simplify corporate decision-making.

By simplifying the process between decision and action, our guidance will help businesses effectively scale NBS finance and impacts on the aggressive 2030 & 2050 climate commitment timelines referenced by the WEF and UNEP.

• Roman Czebiniak , WRI
• Esther Sekyoung Choi , WRI
• Radhika Rao , WRI
• What Exactly Are "Nature-based Solutions”?

Nature-based Solutions can reduce the consequences of climate change on both humanity and the environment by diminishing the impact of natural disasters and enhancing community resilience. Restoring and conserving mangroves alone could prevent yearly flooding  for over 18 million individuals worldwide .

Mexico is one of the four countries with the largest mangrove area and serves as a haven for these restoration powerhouses. Boasting 700,000 hectares, at the rate of $100,000 USD per hectare per year, Mexico’s economy sees an annual environmental services benefit of  $70 billion from mangroves . Unfortunately, tourism, urbanization and land use change to agriculture and cattle grazing have decimated huge swaths of mangroves.

Working alongside our local partner, RE3CO, we will carry out community-driven mangrove restoration, conservation and management to the betterment of people, first and foremost. Local organizations, especially women-led groups, are leading efforts on the ground in multiple regions –  securing economic independence and numerous social benefits from their participation.

Meet Mexico's Mangrove Guardians

• Isla Aguada, Camp – Fragata
• Isla Arena, Camp – Carey
• Isla Arena, Camp. Honey Kaab
• Pantanos de Centla, Tab. - A. Accion
• Sisal, Yuc. - DUMAC
• Ventanilla, Oax. - Lagarto Real
• Valeria López Portillo Purata , WRI
• Sarai Rodríguez , WRI

Project Partner:

• Small Grants Programme Mexico (UNDP)
• 5 Barriers That Hinder Green Financing
• Pathways to Unblocking Private Financing for Nature-based Solutions
• Community Lessons for Successful Nature-Based Solutions Implementation

India – Scaling Landscape Restoration

• Sidhi, Madhya Pradesh, India
• Srishti Kochhar,  WRI India

Implementation Partner:

• Action for Social Advancement
• Restoration Dialogues: Inspiring, Innovating, and Designing Solutions for Scaling Landscape Restoration Through Policy Dialogues With a Focus on People-First, Peer-to-Peer Learning — WRI India

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Nature-based Solutions for climate

Climate change poses a fundamental threat to nature, species, and people. However, nature also provides key solutions for both carbon storage and building climate resilience – if the global community takes steps to protect, restore, and better manage our natural resources.

About Nature-based Solutions for climate

The Paris Climate Agreement commits to keep global warming below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. The actions of the international community between now and 2030 will determine whether we can collectively slow warming enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Above the 1.5 °C limit, the risks of extreme weather and collapsing ecosystems grow. The latest IPCC report demonstrated that nature-based solutions such as r educing the destruction of forests and other ecosystems , restoring them, and improving the management of working lands , such as farms — are among the top five most effective strategies for mitigating carbon emissions by 2030 .

Nature-based Solutions for both mitigation and adaptation serve as an integral piece of the required global response for climate action.

Nature-based solutions can address climate change in three ways:

• Decrease greenhouse gas emissions related to deforestation and land use
• Capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
• Enhance resilience of ecosystems, and as such support societies to adapt to climate hazards such as flooding, sea-level rise, and more frequent and intense droughts, floods, heatwaves, and wildfires.

Heading 30%

of the global mitigation required by 2030/2050 to achieve the 1.5/2°C temperature rise goal agreed to under the Paris Agreement

Heading 5 GtCO 2 e

Nature-based Solutions could deliver emission reductions

and removals of at least 5 GtCO2e per year by 2030 (of a maximum estimate of 11.7 GtCO2e per year).

Heading USD 393 Billion

which can reduce the intensity of climate hazards by 26%

IUCN's work on NbS for climate

IUCN works to advance practical nature-based solutions for both climate mitigation and adaptation, centred on the better conservation, management and restoration of the world’s ecosystems. Learn more at the links below.

Enhancing Nature-based Solutions for an Accelerated Climate Transformation (ENACT)

The ENACT initiative coordinates global efforts to address climate change, land and ecosystem degradation, and biodiversity loss through Nature-based Solutions (NbS). The initiative will also produce an annual State of Nature-based Solutions report to update COP28 and subsequent meetings on progress in implementing NbS commitments. At the UNFCCC COP28, the Egyptian COP27 Presidency, the Government of Germany and IUCN launched ENACT function as an enabler and accelerator of progress towards multilaterally established global targets such as the UN Decade on Restoration, the 30x30 target under the CBD Global Biodiversity Framework, and the G20 Global Initiative on Land Degradation under the UNCCD.

Nature-based Solutions key messages

IUCN supports the following key messages (from  Getting the message right on nature-based solutions to climate  change ), and the  NbS Guidelines  by the Nature-based Solutions Initiative.

1. NbS are not a substitute for the rapid phase out of fossil fuels

2. nbs must involve a wide range of ecosystems on land and in the sea, not just forests, 3. nbs are implemented with the full engagement and consent of indigenous peoples and local communities in a way that respects their cultural and ecological rights, 4. nbs should be explicitly designed to provide measurable benefits for biodiversity, accelerating investment in nature-based climate solutions.

IUCN supports the acceleration of financing for nature-based solutions for climate change through multiple grant mechanisms, including the Global EbA Fund , the Blue Natural Capital Financing Facility , the Subnational Climate Finance initiative , and the Nature+ Accelerator Fund , which collectively represent 200 million USD in available funding for NbS. Current economic valuation research estimates that an investment of 1 dollar in climate adaptation and resilience yields 4 dollars in benefits, on average. At this 1:4 impact ratio 1 ,  IUCN’s investments over the last 5 years has resulted in approximately one trillion dollars’ worth of benefits.

Investing in nature can contribute to recovery efforts by creating jobs, targeting the poorest communities, and building long-term resilience.

Mari Pangestu, Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnership, World Bank at the IUCN Congress in Marseille

1 This estimate of “investment of US$1, on average, yields US$4 in benefits” is pulled from a variety of sources, including the  New Climate Economy Report (2018), Adapt Now: A Global Call for Leadership on Climate Resilience (2019), and Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves Interim Report (2018).

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Reimagining Design with Nature: ecological urbanism in Moscow

• Reflective Essay
• Published: 10 September 2019
• Volume 1 , pages 233–247, ( 2019 )

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• Brian Mark Evans   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1420-1682 1  

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The twenty-first century is the era when populations of cities will exceed rural communities for the first time in human history. The population growth of cities in many countries, including those in transition from planned to market economies, is putting considerable strain on ecological and natural resources. This paper examines four central issues: (a) the challenges and opportunities presented through working in jurisdictions where there are no official or established methods in place to guide regional, ecological and landscape planning and design; (b) the experience of the author’s practice—Gillespies LLP—in addressing these challenges using techniques and methods inspired by McHarg in Design with Nature in the Russian Federation in the first decade of the twenty-first century; (c) the augmentation of methods derived from Design with Nature in reference to innovations in technology since its publication and the contribution that the art of landscape painters can make to landscape analysis and interpretation; and (d) the application of this experience to the international competition and colloquium for the expansion of Moscow. The text concludes with a comment on how the application of this learning and methodological development to landscape and ecological planning and design was judged to be a central tenant of the winning design. Finally, a concluding section reflects on lessons learned and conclusions drawn.

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Acknowledgements

The landscape team from Gillespies Glasgow Studio (Steve Nelson, Graeme Pert, Joanne Walker, Rory Wilson and Chris Swan) led by the author and all our collaborators in the Capital Cities Planning Group.

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Evans, B.M. Reimagining Design with Nature: ecological urbanism in Moscow. Socio Ecol Pract Res 1 , 233–247 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-019-00031-5

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-019-00031-5

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Each year, the Nature Index publishes tables based on counts of high-quality research outputs in the previous calendar year. Users please note:

• The data behind the tables are based on a relatively small proportion of total research papers, they cover the natural sciences only and outputs are non-normalized (that is, they don’t reflect the size of the country or institution, or its overall research output).
• The Nature Index is one indicator of institutional research performance. The metrics of Count and Share used to order Nature Index listings are based on an institution’s or country’s publication output in 82 natural-science journals through 2022, in 2023 64 health-science journals were added to the Index. The 146 journals in the Nature Index were selected on reputation by an independent panel of leading scientists in their fields.
• Nature Index recognizes that many other factors must be taken into account when considering research quality and institutional performance; Nature Index metrics alone should not be used to assess institutions or individuals.
• Nature Index data and methods are transparent and available under a creative commons licence at nature.com/nature-index/ .

The Nature Index database undergoes regular updating, corrections, adjustment of institutional hierarchies, and removal of retracted papers and thus the live website can differ from the frozen annual tables.

Numerical information only is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .