Abstract:
Water resources are one of the cores of human society’s sustainability, which are essential to human survival, socio-economic development, and ecosystem health. Connecting the environment and human society, water resources play an important role to adapt to climate change. Today, the world is facing two major dilemmas: water shortages and serious deterioration in water quality. In order to meet the above challenges, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) increase the amount of available water, improve water use efficiency, and ensure water equality from the source to the city via the protection of ecosystems (forests, wetlands, rivers, etc), investment in green infrastructure (like afforestation and wetland restoration), and sustainable managements (such as conservation farming). The application of NbS would bring a wide range of co-benefits, including enhancing human health, preserving biodiversity, and mitigating and adapting to climate change, which means NbS provides a brand new choice for water resources management. Right now, water resources management has begun to shift from the water resources allocation based on water conservancy projects to the management combining technology and NbS, responding to the water crisis in a way that is more in line with the laws of nature. This change of water recourses management is not only a necessary means to ensure water safety, but also an inevitable choice to achieve sustainable development goals.