There is growing recognition that using the properties of nature through nature-based solutions (NBS) can help to provide viable and cost-effective solutions to a wide range of societal challenges, including disaster risk reduction (DRR). However, NBS realization depends critically on the governance framework that enables the NBS policy process. Drawing from three case studies in Nocera Inferiore (Italy), Munich (Germany), and Wolong (China), we identify key governance enablers—the contextual preconditions, policy processes, and institutions—that proved essential for NBS initiation, planning, design, and implementation. In the three cases, interviews confirm the success of the NBS measures and their benefits in terms not only of DRR but of multiple ecological and social–economic co-benefits. Results highlight critical governance enablers of NBS, including: polycentric governance (novel arrangements in the public administration that involved multiple institutional scales and/or sectors); co-design (innovative stakeholder participatory processes that influenced the final NBS); pro-NBS interest and coalition groups (organized pressure groups that advocated for an NBS); and financial incentives (financing community-based implementation and monitoring of NBS). Findings show that the transition to NBS can contribute to multiple global agendas, including DRR, climate change adaptation, and sustainable development.

Understanding what makes people vulnerable to flooding is key in informing the risk management process. Non-structural measures, such as risk communication, can reduce vulnerability by improving flood risk awareness, but they require a deep understanding of which factors influence risk awareness, and how. We analysed and untangled the role of experience with, and knowledge of, floods by conducting a survey in a municipality in North-eastern Italy that was hit by a flash flood in 2018. The results show that previous experience with floods influences risk awareness not only directly, but also indirectly through the knowledge that was gained from that experience. In addition, specific (as opposed to generic) definitions of experience have been found to be better suited for exploring their effects on risk awareness. Based on the literature and on our results, we propose an experience-knowledge typology to help unravel the complex role that these two variables play in shaping flood risk awareness.

In this chapter, we explore the challenges of achieving a level of awareness of disaster risk, by each person or organisation receiving a warning, which allows them to take actions to reduce potential impacts while being consistent with the warning producer’s capabilities and cost-effectiveness considerations. Firstly we show how people respond to warnings and how the nature and delivery of the warning affects their response. We look at the aims of the person providing the warning, the constraints within which they must act and the judgement process behind the issue of a warning. Then we address the delivery of the warning, noting that warning messages need to be tailored to different groups of receivers, and see how a partnership between warner and warned can produce a more effective result. We include illustrative examples of co-design of warning systems in Argentina and Nepal, experience in communicating uncertainty in Germany and the Weather-Ready Nation initiative in the USA. We conclude with a summary of aspects of the warning that need to be considered between warner and decision-maker when designing or upgrading a warning system.