Climate Resilience

Nature-based Solutions for Degraded Landscapes

Municipal Officials & Professionals

Backyard & Neighborhoods

Land Managers or Stewards

Youth, Parents & Teachers

Plans to address degraded landscapes frequently benefit from landscape-scale projects that cross community boundaries, and long-range planning to prevent degradation to begin with will be the most effective. However, there are shovel-in-the-ground projects that can be implemented within your own town/city. A successful plan to improve degraded landscapes will include land protection, bylaws and zoning regulations, and education/advocacy. There are three main strategies that will help prevent or improve landscape degradation, and each has associated Nature-based Solutions.

Nature-Based Strategy 1:

Restore/Create Natural Landscapes

Nature-based Solutions

Remove invasives
Protect forests
Preserve old-growth characteristics when logging
Convert lawns to meadows

Nature-Based Strategy 2:

Restore Healthy Soils

Healthy soils are the key to healthy landscapes, and restoration of degraded soils is possible.

Nature-based Solutions

Add sand to silty soils to increase aeration, infiltration, carbon
Add compost to increase organics, carbon
Maintain vegetative cover using cover crops or mulch
Minimize tillage
Avoid compaction and minimize disturbance
Grow a variety of crops; inter-crop if possible
Test soil and amend if deficient
Minimize use of artificial fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides

Nature-Based Strategy 3:

Sequester Carbon

Capture and store CO2 to reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

Nature-based Solutions

Protect trees, especially older trees
Plant meadows
Plant pocket forests
Restore/create wetlands
Minimize tillage

Site Studies: Degraded Landscapes

Across all of our communities, our watershed is experiencing an increase in invasive plant species and changes in native habitats. There is variation from town to town depending on geography and land cover, and the pace of local development. This collection of case studies identifies specific sites in each focus community that are experiencing a degradation of the landscape or that are at high risk for such. Each Site Study includes a map with site-specific NbS recommendations, a link to the site on an interactive DataViewer, and Nature-based Solutions Project Templates for the recommended NbS. Maps in our Nashua River Watershed-wide Map Atlas can also be of interest in looking at existing land covers and soil functions, areas likely to be developed, and landscapes that are a priority for ecological planning. We encourage you to further explore additional sites and solutions through each town-specific NbS Recommendations Report (links below).