Community Engaged Nature-Based Solutions for Stewardship and Water Security

Dear Colleagues,

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are living solutions inspired and continuously supported by Nature. Decision makers promote NbS for climate, food, water, and biodiversity security. How and why do communities learn, engage, and act with NbS? At NbSConference2022 at Oxford University this year, several CSO, NGO, and community groups presented lessons from engagement with NbS. However, this type of real-world knowledge rarely makes it into the published academic literature to be shared more broadly. Citizens and communities are becoming more involved and invested in the ecological wellbeing of their global and local environments, which face stresses from climate change as well as and natural resource depletion and degradation. Citizen science and community-based environmental monitoring programs have strengthened tremendously in the past two decades, and there is increasing evidence of the positive impacts of these efforts. The dissemination of community-led innovations and programming in NbS will play a critical role in creating long-term solutions for environmental conservation and the restoration of natural habitats, and in creating sustainably built environments in the face of climate challenges.

In this Special Issue, we invite analyses, frameworks, viewpoints, and case studies in community-engaged NbS, including any element of NbS such as restoration, conservation, blue-green infrastructure, ecosystem services, ecosystem-based principles, ecological intensification, landscape functions, ecohydrology, ecosystem-based adaptation, ecosystem-based mitigation, eco-disaster risk reduction, natural climate solutions, etc. We also welcome research using community-based participatory methods and/or creative methods, such as science story-telling and creative geographies.

We welcome papers on topics including but not limited to the following:

• Evidence for community education, engagement, and action with NbS;
• Holistic perspectives on how NbS fits into co-governance agreements;
• Critical reviews of NbS related to community engagement;
• Best practices in community-led, participatory NbS programming;
• Examples of creative methods or practices in communicating NbS;
• Any other pressing and relevant issues.

Dr. Kristian L. Dubrawski
Dr. Maleea Acker
Guest Editors

Ludwig Paul Cabling
Guest Editor Assistant

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.