New Report Explores Nature-Based Solutions for Urban Flood Resilience
A new report from the Liberty Mutual Climate Transition Center and the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship examines how nature-based solutions can help communities reduce urban flood risk while improving long-term resilience. Building Urban Flood Resilience with Ecosystem Services explores the growing impacts of climate change, expanding development, and impervious surfaces, and offers recommendations for businesses, policymakers, and communities seeking to better manage flood risk.
This report synthesizes empirical literature on urban flooding, impervious surface coverage, ecosystem services, nature-based solutions, corporate responsibility, and flood risk management in the context of climate change.
Climate change is intensifying precipitation and raising sea levels, leaving much of today’s infrastructure ill-equipped for tomorrow’s storms. But the challenges are not driven solely by increased precipitation. A growing body of scientific evidence reveals that the way we build — the expansion of impervious surfaces through roads, rooftops, parking lots, and commercial developments — fundamentally alters the hydrological cycle in ways that amplify flood severity, frequency, and geographic extent.
Nature-Based Solutions Reduce Flood Risk
Nature-based ecosystems act as first‑line defenses by absorbing and slowing runoff, reducing peak flows, and lowering localized flood exposure. Science tells us that nature-based approaches, like reforestation and wetland restoration, are the most cost-efficient and effective resilience measures to reduce urban flood risk. Nature-based solutions show benefit-cost ratios from 1.6:1 to 2.8:1 when ecosystem co-benefits like carbon sequestration, reduced disaster damage, and improved health are included.
Communities can get ahead of flood risk by taking proactive steps, including keeping new developments out of floodplains, reducing paved surface expansion in favor of nature-based infrastructure, protecting forests and wetlands, and upgrading old drainage systems. They can also find businesses and supply chains at risk, encourage safer locations, and develop backup plans.
A Role for Businesses in Building Resilience
Flooding will continue to increase costs for companies. Eventually, these costs may become unrecoverable with insurance alone. These risks can be mitigated and costs reduced, but companies can’t lead this work alone. The report explains that coordination and collaboration between companies, communities, and governments can help maximize returns:
- Land-use decisions embedded in community stakeholder engagement, corporate real estate, supply chain, logistics, and development operations are linked to community flood vulnerability and company resilience.
- Corporate participation in the development of green infrastructure, ecosystem restoration, and nature-based flood mitigation can generate returns that align financial performance with societal resilience.
- Emerging policy and financial frameworks — from green bonds and blended finance to payments for ecosystem services — can create new scalable pathways for corporate leaders to reduce flood risk and ensure resilient business continuity, thereby improving risk profiles and business results.
The report concludes that reducing urban flood risk will require collaboration among businesses, governments, and communities. It highlights opportunities to invest in green infrastructure, restore natural ecosystems, and incorporate flood resilience into land-use planning and corporate decision-making.
Download Building Urban Flood Resilience with Ecosystem Services to learn more about the report’s findings and recommendations.
