The nature-based solutions planning support system: A playground for site and solution prioritization

Shahryar Sarabi,Bauke de Vries,A.Georges L. Romme,Qi Han

doi:10.1016/j.scs.2021.103608

Shahryar Sarabi, Bauke de Vries + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103608

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Abstract

• NBS co-planning needs an integrated assessment of site and solution suitability. • An NBS planning support system (NBS-PSS) is developed and tested in a Dutch city. • NBS-PSS provides an integrated multiscale hierarchical approach for co-planning. • NBS-PSS helps to maximize NBS benefits, while considering local contexts. Cities are increasingly adopting Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) to address multiple societal challenges effectively. Successful adoption of NBS and realization of their multifunctionality requires a holistic and collaborative planning approach that incorporates stakeholders across scales and disciplines. However, such an approach is usually not aligned with the mainstream sectoral planning process in cities. Planning support systems (PSS) play an essential role in the transition to collaborative planning. Current systems used for NBS planning tend to be highly specialized, focusing on a few ecosystem services and a single scale. As a response, the NBS-PSS is introduced. This system's novel multiscale hierarchical framework helps stakeholders to prioritize sites and solutions in an integrative manner. The NBS-PSS provides the flexibility needed for NBS planning and allows users to interact and iterate over different planning process stages. The system has been tested in the city of Eindhoven with a group of experts. Accordingly, the system appears to have a high capacity to facilitate collaboration and motivate stakeholders to engage in the planning process, given the rapid responses and easy-to-understand process and data representation. Moreover, the NBS-PSS was found to be a helpful tool for enhancing the awareness of opportunities for NBS in urban settings.

Highlights

Providing a vibrant, sustainable and resilient living environment is becoming a central goal for many cities across the world (Pancost, 2016)
Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) is an inter-and trans disciplinary concept that entails a systemic and holistic perspective on major societal challenges. We explored how this holistic approach can be adopted in the spatial planning process by developing a planning support system that serves to mainstream this approach
We introduced NBS-Planning support systems (PSS) as a planning support system that facilitates a more strategic and integrated planning process by con necting different stages of the NBS planning process—from defining challenges and selecting solutions to identifying intervention areas and estimating costs—while taking the multifunctionality of NBS as well as the preferences of stakeholders into account

Summary

Introduction

Sustainable and resilient living environment is becoming a central goal for many cities across the world (Pancost, 2016). Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are believed to enhance urban resilience by helping to buffer against these challenges (McPhearson, Andersson, Elmqvist & Frantzeskaki, 2015). NBS have increasingly been adopted by cities across the world to enhance sustainability and resilience (Lafortezza, Chen, van den Bosch & Randrup, 2018). Several planning support systems concerning NBS development have been proposed (Voskamp, de Luca, Polo-Ballinas, Hulsman & Brolsma, 2021). They have rarely been picked up by practitioners, mainly due to their complexity, low user-friendliness, and the extensive training and time needed to generate relevant outputs (Kuller et al, 2018). For planning multifunctional NBS, it is necessary to consider the preferences of stakeholders (Hansen & Pauleit, 2014); only a few of the previously proposed systems properly incorporate stakeholder-driven weighting to take different priorities and preferences of stakeholders into account. Norton et al (2015) proposed a multiscale hierarchical framework to prioritize the placement and type of green infrastructure; these authors mainly focused on the cooling benefits, without using stakeholder-derived weights. Madureira & Andresen (2014) estimated the spatial priority areas for green infra structure, based on two criteria - proximity to public green spaces and the potential to improve local temperature regulation - again without including stakeholder input to weight these criteria

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