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Future dynamics of biological invasions are highly uncertain because they depend on multiple social–ecological drivers. We used a scenario-based approach to explore potential management options for invasive species in Europe. During two workshops involving a multidisciplinary team of experts, we developed a management strategy arranged into 19 goals relating to policy, research, public awareness, and biosecurity. We conceived solutions for achieving these goals under different plausible future scenarios, and identified four interrelated recommendations around which any long-term strategy for managing invasive species can be structured: (1) a European biosecurity regime, (2) a dedicated communication strategy, (3) data standardization and management tools, and (4) a monitoring and assessment system. Finally, we assessed the feasibility of the management strategy and found substantial differences among scenarios. Collectively, our results indicate that it is time for a new strategy for managing biological invasions in Europe, one that is based on a more integrative approach across socioeconomic sectors and countries.

Invasive alien species are one of the major threats to global biodiversity, ecosystem integrity, nature's contributions to people and human health. While scenarios about potential future developments have been available for other global change drivers for quite some time, we largely lack an understanding of how biological invasions might unfold in the future across spatial scales.Based on previous work on global invasion scenarios, we developed a workflow to downscale global scenarios to a regional and policy-relevant context. We applied this workflow at the European scale to create four European scenarios of biological invasions until 2050 that consider different environmental, socio-economic and socio-cultural trajectories, namely the European Alien Species Narratives (Eur-ASNs).We compared the Eur-ASNs with their previously published global counterparts (Global-ASNs), assessing changes in 26 scenario variables. This assessment showed a high consistency between global and European scenarios in the logic and assumptions of the scenario variables. However, several discrepancies in scenario variable trends were detected that could be attributed to scale differences. This suggests that the workflow is able to capture scale-dependent differences across scenarios.We also compared the Global- and Eur-ASNs with the widely used Global and European Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), a set of scenarios developed in the context of climate change to capture different future socio-economic trends. Our comparison showed considerable divergences in the scenario space occupied by the different scenarios, with overall larger differences between the ASNs and SSPs than across scales (global vs. European) within the scenario initiatives.Given the differences between the ASNs and SSPs, it seems that the SSPs do not adequately capture the scenario space relevant to understanding the complex future of biological invasions. This underlines the importance of developing independent but c

The European Union (EU) has firmly positioned itself as a global leader in promoting and implementing nature-based solutions (NBS). The recently released EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change, and Forest Strategy - all representing key pillars of the ambitious European Green Deal (EGD) - rely on NBS to both preserve and restore ecosystem integrity and increase climate resilience. Although research and policy in Europe have advanced the conceptualization and operationalization of NBS, a much wider adoption is needed to reach the ambitious goals of the EGD and fulfil its vision of transforming into a sustainable, climate-neutral, climate resilient, fair, and prosperous EU by 2050. In this paper, we review recent EU-supported research, policy, and practices to identify critical dimensions that still need to be addressed for greater uptake of NBS. While recognising the multiple societal challenges NBS can target, we build on the key messages from the ‘5th European Climate Change Adaptation conference ECCA 2021′ and focus our analysis on NBS for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. We screen a wide range of NBS cases across the EU and identify-three core challenges to implementation: the lack of a comprehensive evidence base on the effectiveness of NBS to address targeted challenges; the need for a greater involvement of the private sector in financing NBS; and opportunities for enhancing stakeholder engagement in the successful design and implementation of NBS. We take these challenges as the starting point for a broader reflection and critical discussion on the role of i) knowledge, i) finance, including investments in NBS and divestments from nature-negative projects, and iii) governance and policy frameworks to enable the uptake of NBS. We conclude by identifying options for the EU to foster the uptake of NBS in research, policy and practice.