16
Chapter1
2
Providing cost-effective solutions
NWRM canbe
cost-effective solutions
when looking at their establishment,
operation and maintenance costs as compared to traditional engineering
solutions and grey infrastructure. In some cases, their financial costs and
effectiveness towards achieving a single objective alone may already make
themmore cost-effective, in particular in a long-term perspective. In other
cases, you might need to factor in their contributions to meeting several
policy objectives in order to realise their cost-effectiveness.The ability to
simultaneously deliver multiple benefits is one of the main reasons that
NWRM are economically appealing overall. In the longer term, the higher
resilience of NWRM to natural hazards such as flood or seismic risks
(compared to grey infrastructure) is also an advantage to be considered.
Therearemanyopportunities for financingNWRM
Because of their potential to deliver multiple benefits and to contribute
to different policy objectives, youmight findmany beneficiaries potentially
interested in supporting the NWRM you are considering. NWRM can be
financially
supported by awide rangeof public subsidies
(EU and national),
voluntary agreements or compensation funds
.These
can act as facilitators to their implementation, in
particular when some of the benefits are not only
realised by those in charge of implementing and/
or financing the measure. For example, financial
incentives can support soil conservationpractices that
are beneficial for those affected by diffuse pollution,
erosion and flood risk, even in cases where they are
perceived as detrimental to agricultural yields and
rural income.
However:Remain critical
, when you decide to choose and implement NWRM,
as they are not a cure-all!
As youwill learn in the following chaptersof this guide,deliveringmultiplebenefits
and contributing simultaneously to different policy objectives requires careful
selection and design of NWRM. In some cases, themain role of NWRMwill be
to complement large-scale grey infrastructure.Thiswill helpminimise the size (and
costs) of grey infrastructure, and can alsominimise, or compensate for, potential
negative impacts of grey infrastructure. In general,NWRM have to be tailored to
your specific conditions as it should not be assumed that they will automatically
deliver multiple benefits (as indicated in theNWRM identity cards presented in
theNWRM toolbox).
More information on financing
mechanisms for supporting the
implementation
of
NWRM
is
presented under the section ‘Find
the right incentives’. Financing isalso
addressed in the synthesis document
SDn°11:HowcanNWRMbefinanced?
)
