Rethinking Nature-Based Solutions through the Lens of Transitional Vulnerabilities
As climate, ecological, and social crises intensify, Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are gaining momentum as promising interventions for addressing environmental degradation and community resilience. However, NBS are often portrayed as universally "good," overlooking the complex, power-laden, and transitional nature of the landscapes and communities they transform. The following tests a new conceptual framework for understanding transitional vulnerability in NBS, one that moves beyond technocratic narratives and embraces entangled social-ecological realities, historical injustices, and multiple futures.
Transitional vulnerability in NBS is not a Linear Process, but a Layered One
This isn't a step-by-step recipe. Transitional vulnerability should be understood as a layered, recursive system, where processes interact, repeat, and reshape each other over time and across scales. They are recursive and systemic, shaped by interactions across four core systemic layers:
- Structural and Environmental Condition
- Analytical Lens on Foundational Drivers
- Processes of Change and Exposure
- Uncovering Latent Fragilities
This format reflects the non-linear, contested, and emergent nature of transitions, particularly in complex and conflict-prone contexts such as NBS.
Reading the Framework: Key Components
1. Structured and Environmental Conditions
This does not begin with climate or ecology, but with power relations, governance regimes, and historical injustice. These shape who gets to participate in NBS, whose knowledge counts, and who benefits or bears the cost (human and more-than-human).
2. Layered Conditions Shape Exposure and Capacity
The systemic qualities include:
- Biophysical-Ecological Conditions (e.g. land degradation, water flows, species distributions), and
- Socio-Institutional Conditions (e.g. land tenure, resource access, indigenous rights).
These conditions co-define how NBS are perceived, implemented, and contested.
3. Processes: Negotiation, Not Delivery
Rather than assuming NBS deliver "benefits," this framework sees them as the result of ongoing negotiated processes. Values, memories, and ecological needs often collide in this space, leading to entanglement between human and non-human actors.
4. Vulnerability: Contingent Futures
The framework centres on the notion that not all outcomes are inclusive or adaptive. NBS transitions may lead to:
- Inclusive Adaptation
- Resistance or Contestation
Failures and exclusions due to rigidity or elite capture
5. Outcomes and Feedback: Multiple Timelines
This framework embeds immediate, medium-term, and long-term pathways, recognising that vulnerability unfolds over time. It also includes feedback loops to reflect how lessons, resistance, or outcomes can reshape institutions, knowledge, and power.
Why This Transitional Vulnerability Framework Matters
Too many vulnerability assessments still treat people as passive recipients and nature as a service provider. In contrast, this framework:
- Recognises entangled agency of humans and nature
- Highlights inequality and historical trauma
- Accepts that transformation involves conflict, divergence, and ambiguity
Towards More Reflexive NBS
If we want truly just and resilient transitions, we should design NBS with humility, embedding participation, conflict resolution, and adaptive governance from the start. This model invites us to think not just about the fragility of what works, but for whom, how, and at what cost.
If you're working on NBS, climate governance, or community transitions, I'd love to hear how this resonates with your experiences.
Feel free to contact me at tim.pittaway@hutton.ac.uk
Cover photo: Red Zeppelin on Unsplash.