Landscape approaches and stakeholder engagement in nature-based solutions for sustainable river floodplains: A systematic review

Abstract

Nature-based solutions have emerged as effective strategies for addressing environmental change and promoting sustainable development, with widespread applications in ecologically sensitive areas, such as river floodplains. This systematic review aims to elucidate the application of landscape-scale approaches in nature-based solutions and to emphasise the advantages of stakeholder participation. Following the PRISMA-SCR guidelines, this review analyses 35 selected studies published between 2014 and 2024, focusing on cases where both landscape approaches and stakeholder engagement were integrated into nature-based solutions. The findings reveal that stakeholder participation is lowest during the monitoring and implementation stages, with only 17.14% of the included studies mentioning involvement at this stage. Stakeholder participation is unevenly distributed across different categories, reflecting underlying conflicts of interest. The application of landscape approaches in nature-based solutions presents certain challenges; however, landscape metrics provide valuable data support, and hybrid landscape engineering is widely applied in practice. Remote sensing technologies offer greater potential for data acquisition and stakeholder engagement at the landscape scale. Nevertheless, cases integrating both landscape approaches and stakeholder engagement in river floodplains remain relatively rare, with only three studies identified. Based on the analysis of landscape approaches and stakeholder participation, this review proposes a sustainable governance framework for nature-based solutions in river floodplains, combining both landscape approaches and stakeholder involvement, thereby offering theoretical and practical guidance for future governance efforts in this field.