Grounding Water: Integrated Methods for Nature Based Solutions in Great Lakes Urban Coastal Regions

As changing precipitation patterns continue to exacerbate flooding risks across the North American Great Lakes region, the adoption of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to address grey infrastructure capacity needs and biodiversity loss is gaining traction.While the associated benefits are well-supported by existing research, challenges remain for coordinated regional adoption that operates at the watershed and ecosystem scales.In deindustrializing Southeast Michigan, an outdated and failing combined infrastructure system combined with sprawling urbanization patterns and a fragmented water governance system makes cross-sector collaboration urgent.This paper demonstrates a practical, transferable approach for scaling up fragmented green infrastructure projects toward a coordinated regional NbS portfolio.