Mountain regions get blueprint for nature-based disaster protection

The World Bank has assessed how planting forests, restoring wetlands, and protecting natural landscapes can reduce flood and landslide damage in Central Asia and the South Caucasus — regions where traditional concrete barriers and dams are expensive or inadequate. This matters because it's cheaper to let a forest absorb floodwater than to build and maintain steel and concrete infrastructure, and those natural systems also provide water, timber, and habitat as side benefits.

Most disaster-prone regions in developing economies still default to expensive engineered solutions because no one had measured whether nature-based alternatives actually work in their specific terrain and climate — this assessment fills that gap and could unlock billions in cheaper, more durable infrastructure.