Nature-Based Solutions (or, NBS) are strategies that combat climate change and mitigate its impacts by utilizing natural resources like vegetation, soils, and watersheds. Frequently, NBS overlap with agricultural and other land management practices already used across the world. Boulder County uses NBS in several public-facing programs, and also supports NBS best practices across the industry through several published reports catered to the county’s unique geography.
Nature-Based Solutions
Community Forestry Corps
The Community Forestry Corps (CFC), a multi-jurisdictional summer program in partnership with the City of Boulder, the PLAY Boulder Foundation, and supported by the cities of Louisville and Lafayette, empowers youth to maintain and expand urban forests. As corps members, youth plant trees and support their first years of growth, while also gathering critical local environmental information needed to increase community resilience and sustainable community development. In 2025, corps members will plant and tend to nearly 100 trees across the county, while also supporting an additional 150 new trees from last year.
Forest Waste Management Strategy
Climate change and decades of fire suppression have led to overcrowded forests. This has created an increased risk of wildfire, and a need for removal of excess biomass–called “liability biomass.” Liability biomass is low-value and often expensive to remove, which creates a bottleneck for wildfire mitigation.
Boulder County collaborated with several stakeholders to address this bottleneck and find climate-beneficial ways to use up excess liability biomass. Read the full report, From Forest Waste to Resource: A Biomass Utilization Strategy for Boulder County.
Growing Shade Longmont
Boulder County is partnering with the City of Longmont and the PLAY Boulder Foundation to expand the urban tree canopy on private land in disproportionately impacted areas of Longmont. For this first year, the project will focus on two neighborhoods, where new trees will be distributed to private property owners with the support of several community-based organizations and groups.
Nature Based Solutions Toolkit
In April 2025, OSCAR published the Boulder County Nature-based Solutions (NBS) Toolkit—Designing Resilient Urban Landscapes: NBS for Local Governments. This toolkit provides practical guidance specific to the geographic areas in and around Boulder County that addresses climate challenges through sustainable, ecosystem-driven approaches. Its action and policy recommendations are tailored to the region’s distinct ecological and climatic factors to achieve both climate adaptation and mitigation.
Soil Health Initiative
The Boulder County Soil Health Initiative provides funding to local agriculture producers who aim to improve soil health and promote local, sustainable, and resilient food systems. Projects selected for funding incorporate USDA’s principles to improve soil health, which requires farmers to utilize sustainable agricultural practices such as no tillage, cover cropping, rotational grazing, and crop rotations.
Urban Tree Canopy Assessment
Boulder County’s Urban Tree Canopy (UTC) Assessment, completed by PlanIT Geo in January 2025, provides a comprehensive analysis of existing tree coverage and opportunities for expansion across Boulder, Erie, Lafayette, Longmont, Louisville, Lyons, Superior, and the urbanized areas of unincorporated BoCo. The assessment highlights areas with the greatest need for tree planting, considering environmental, socioeconomic, and demographic factors, and suggests a goal of reaching 25% canopy coverage by 2050.
PlanIT Geo also developed the interactive CANOPY Tool, which integrates geospatial and EnviroScreen data to help communities make informed, data-driven decisions about urban forestry management.