Abstract
In policy and practice, urban Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are considered promising innovations for sustainable urban transformation. NBS are interventions that use nature to address multiple sustainability challenges simultaneously. As such, they present a novel perspective on urban land use and development. Yet their current uptake into urban development lags behind EU ambitions. Drawing from transitions studies, this paper suggests that the limited uptake of NBS innovation stems from structural conditions that keep urban development systems locked in their current state, thereby favouring traditional ‘grey’ development. With a systematic literature review, we identify preliminary structural conditions that likely affect the uptake of urban NBS, culminating in a framework of ‘urban infrastructure regimes’, which we then illustrate with two European examples of urban NBS. Our findings indicate the relevance of using a transitions studies perspective for generating insights into the structural conditions – knowledge base, policy paradigms, etc. – that underlie barriers and opportunities for NBS uptake. We particularly argue that identifying the state and obduracy of these conditions provides a deeper understanding of how NBS uptake takes place. Findings also suggest that nature-based innovations require a customised transitions framework that accounts for the role of physical geographies.
Highlights
The sustainable development of cities is one of the key challenges of our society (Kabisch et al, 2017; McCormick et al, 2013; Monstadt, 2009)
Our research focused on structural conditions, but did briefly touch upon the active roles played by certain actors aiming to implement and possibly mainstream Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) projects in face of these regime structures
We drew upon tran sitions studies to describe structural conditions and the way these, in interplay, influence the wider implementation and uptake of NBS
Summary
The sustainable development of cities is one of the key challenges of our society (Kabisch et al, 2017; McCormick et al, 2013; Monstadt, 2009). NBS is an umbrella concept that incorporates different forms of nature-based interventions, such as green roofs and façades or sustainable drainage systems (Dorst et al, 2019). Discourses on NBS hold the promise of urban trans formation, envisioning a systemic change in how cities are designed and built (European Commission, 2015; Faivre et al, 2017; Kabisch et al, 2017). Different stakeholders call for enabling the wider integration of NBS into urban development practice and policy (CohenShacham et al, 2016; Faivre et al, 2017; Lafortezza & Sanesi, 2019)
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