Applications and perspectives for land restoration through nature-based solutions

Socio-economic activities in a territory entail an environmental impact on the ecosystems. This impact is usually negative on the land and biodiversity since food production replaces the original land covered by pastures and crops, while mineral extraction goes further by completely eliminating the soil and subsoil layers. In many countries, the intensive use of land for agriculture and livestock, as well as mining, has left great environmental liabilities, represented in eroded lands that can no longer sustain a minimum profitable production and also lack the sufficient capacity for spontaneous natural regeneration. Therefore, high expenses for engineering solutions are needed in order to restore the land to an optimal ecological condition. Nature-based solutions (NBS) have become a hot topic in the last few years and seem to be a more sustainable strategy for the reclamation of degraded lands. The main feature of NBS is that it mimics the natural reparation processes that take place in disturbed environments, leading to a progressive improvement of ecological function. In this short review, we present applications and perspectives for land restoration through NBS.