A Sphere Unpacked Guide: Nature-based Solutions for Climate Resilience in Humanitarian Action

“Implementing nature-based solutions could reduce the number of people in need of international humanitarian assistance due to climate change and weather-related disasters… By 2030, 150 million people a year could need humanitarian assistance due to floods, droughts, and storms. By 2050, this is expected to rise to 200 million people annually.” IFRC and WWF, 2022

Growing disaster risk, driven in part by largescale environmental degradation, threatens to exceed the humanitarian sector’s capacity to respond in the coming decades. With over 20 million people a year displaced by climate-related natural hazards, there is an urgent need to find new approaches to reducing risk and saving lives. This need is particularly pressing as the nature of emergency response is shifting to longer-term, multigenerational refugee and internally displaced person (IDP) scenarios.

The environment in which people live and work is essential for their health, well-being and recovery from crisis, yet it is often overlooked within humanitarian crises. Environmental degradation exacerbates disaster risk and undermines humanitarian and development gains. 

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are actions that hold the twin objectives of providing for human well-being and protecting the environment. They are a tangible solution that can build immediate and long-term resilience for those affected by crisis. This Unpacked Guide focuses on NbS for resilience in humanitarian contexts, including for disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation.