Nature-Based Solutions for Environmental Management: A Comprehensive Review of Effectiveness, Co-Benefits, and Monitoring

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are increasingly promoted in environmental management to address water, climate, biodiversity, and pollution challenges while delivering social and economic co-benefits. Yet decision-makers still face uncertainty about what works where, for whom, and how reliably over time. This narrative review synthesizes cross-cutting, peer-reviewed evidence on three decision-critical domains: NBS effectiveness for key environmental management objectives; co-benefits, trade-offs, and equity (including distributional risks across groups and places); and monitoring and evaluation (M&E). This review is not a systematic review, not a semi-systematic review with a fixed, protocol-driven study inventory, and not a meta-analysis; “comprehensiveness” refers to breadth of themes and management objectives addressed, not to exhaustive capture of all published sources. A distinguishing contribution is an intervention–pathway–endpoint typology oriented to measurement and M&E: it links broad NBS categories to dominant biophysical mechanisms and to concrete indicator families. Unlike criteria-first verification frameworks, this typology is organized around measurement logic (what to monitor, and how endpoints chain from processes to management decisions). It complements criteria- and process-oriented NbS quality frameworks (e.g., the IUCN Global Standard’s criteria and indicators for verification, design, and scaling) by foregrounding an explicit indicator logic chain for appraisal, monitoring, and cross-project comparability. The review assesses effectiveness for water quality, flood and flow regulation, heat mitigation, biodiversity, and carbon/climate mitigation; consolidates social, economic, and ecological co-benefits; reviews recurring M&E weaknesses; proposes a pragmatic minimum indicator set and feasible evaluation designs; and outlines an implementation-oriented NBS environmental management cycle. The aim is to strengthen transparent, climate-aware, evidence-based, and equity-aware environmental management.