Approaches integrating environmental management practices have been gaining importance in recent years. Sustainable Land Management (SLM), Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), Ecosystem-based disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR) and Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are widely applied approaches that tackle certain drivers of challenges such as food insecurity, water scarcity, decline in biodiversity and threats to livelihoods, while also considering both human well-being and ecosystem functions and services.

Better understanding the similarities, differences and relationships between these approaches helps to improve efficiency in implementation and leverage synergies. By shedding more light on where these approaches align, investments in land-based solutions in response to different types of environmental challenges can be more effectively designed to achieve multiple targets. In response to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) decision 19/COP.14 paragraph 4, the main objective of this report is to understand and elaborate upon the characteristics of SLM, EbA, Eco-DRR and NbS.

The report begins with an overview of the historical backgrounds and origins of SLM, EbA, Eco-DRR and NbS. Despite differences in their specific goals and targeted benefits, all approaches aim for the support of biodiversity, land-based ecosystems and ecosystem services and functions, and employ measures to conserve, restore and sustainably use land to support ecosystem services and functions, including SLM technologies. Furthermore, irrespective of their different goals, the projects developed under any approach can generate comparable co-benefits, especially due to their support of biodiversity.

The capacity for all these approaches to deliver multiple co-benefits means that projects of each approach can directly contribute to implementing the specific goals of the other approaches as well. Thus, multiple global and national targets, frameworks, strategies and conventions which call for the implementation of one or more of these approaches, can benefit from this report by avoiding duplication and reducing the overall investments necessary to achieve the set targets and goals. This is critical for achieving the ambitious Agenda 2030, including voluntary land degradation neutrality (LDN) targets and climate action under the Paris Agreement. It will also be the case for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework currently under development.

The added value that will come from optimizing the links among these approaches extends from national policymakers to the practitioners of SLM, EbA and Eco-DRR projects, which all share the ultimate goal of sustainable development. To capture the coherence and alignment among these approaches, their similarities and differences have been summarized in a conceptual framework. The framework has been designed to help practitioners understand the specific goals of each approach, and to link these to the relevant global and national targets, frameworks, strategies and conventions, which can support monitoring and evaluation as well as reporting processes.

The synergies among these approaches are further illustrated based on three case studies in order to demonstrate opportunities for leveraging multiple co-benefits and targets at implementation level irrespective of the different objectives under each. The results of this assessment demonstrate that activities under one approach can be beneficial to achieve the specific goals of other approaches with little additional effort. It is essential for policymakers, project developers and practitioners to recognize that. This is key to the achievement of sustainable development.