The science, policy and practice of nature-based solutions: An interdisciplinary perspective.

The concept of nature-based solutions (NBS) is widely promoted as an approach to effectively counteract climate change and land degradation (LD) as well as simultaneously add environmental and socio-economic benefits. To have a worldwide impact from NBS, it is important to consider potential land and soil resources at various scales, including administrative units (e.g., country, state, county, etc.). Nature-based solutions are considered by many United Nations (UN) initiatives, including the Paris Agreement and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Currently, there is no consensus on how to define NBS and their indicators. The innovation of this study is that it defines and evaluates soil- and land-based NBS potential while suggesting indicators for land- and soil-based NBS using the contiguous United States of America (USA) as an example. This study defines potential land for NBS as the sum of the individual satellite-identified areas of barren, shrub/scrub, and herbaceous land covers, which are linked to climate and inherent soil quality (SQ), so that NBS could be implemented without changing other land uses. The potential soil for NBS, based on SQ, is a subset of land available for potential NBS. As of 2021, anthropogenic LD affected 2,092,539.0 km2 in the contiguous USA, with 928,618.0 km2 (15.1% of the contiguous US area) of actual potential land for NBS. The contiguous USA had a negative balance between anthropogenic LD and actual potential land for NBS to compensate for anthropogenic LD of −1,163,921.0 km2. Thirty-seven states also exhibited a negative balance for LD compensation with Iowa having the worst balance of −124,497.0 km2. Many states with positive anthropogenic LD and NBS balances showed that most of the potential NBS land was of low SQ and, therefore, may not be suitable for NBS. Planning for NBS should involve a feasibility analysis of “nationally determined NBS” (NDNBS) through site and context-specific NBS.

Since its introduction, the concept of “nature-based solutions” has gained much attention, drawing public funds and private investments. Nature-based solutions conceptualise the use of nature in planning as a cost-efficient and sustainable means to address societal, economic, and ecological challenges. However, this “triple win” premise tends to conceal potentially resulting injustices, such as displacement through green gentrification. While these injustices have attracted the attention of environmental justice scholars, as exemplified by the “just green enough” approach, links to the “nature-based solutions” concept are mostly implicit. Further, the concept of environmental privilege, questioning who benefits from created natural amenities, has rarely been taken up. This article, therefore, argues that environmental justice should be linked closely to nature-based solutions. Supported by a theoretical perspective, the article aims at exploring who benefits from, and who loses out on, urban nature-based solutions processes. It builds on a qualitative literature review of the scholarly landscape on environmental justice and urban greening while linking to nature-based solutions, adding perspectives of environmental privilege. In this, it attempts to offer three important contributions to the current academic discussion. First, the article provides an overview of the debate on urban greening, (in)justice, and environmental privilege. Second, it relates the concept of nature-based solutions to the debate on environmental justice, opening nature-based solutions up for critique and conceptual refinements. Third, it outlines a way forward for reframing nature-based solutions through the lens of environmental justice and privilege. Thus, this article provides a starting point for further discussions on the implementation of just nature-based solutions in cities.

Evaluation of nature-based solutions’ contributions to the sustainable development goals

Communities are important stakeholders in implementing nature‐based solutions (NbS). Therefore, understanding their practices and contributions is essential for the implementation of NbS. This study applied both qualitative and quantitative approaches to collect data from 156 respondents in a household survey using a semi‐structured questionnaire with open‐ and close‐ended questions. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, correlations and regressions. Majority of the respondents applied cover cropping, forest/streamside buffering, tree planting (to reduce dependence on neighbouring Budongo Central Forest Reserve (CFR) for fuelwood), wetland restoration, minimum tillage and agroforestry on their lands. NbS were more practiced on customary land compared to other land tenures in the area. Results reveal an attitude‐behavioural gap in willingness to expand/have NbS and implementation of NbS on household land. Households who were willing to contribute to the management of NbS were likely to have a lesser proportion of land maintained as NbS zones. As such, willingness to expand/have NbS does not necessarily translate into implementation of the NbS. This community attitude‐behavioural gap could be caused by competing land use practices, such as commercial sugarcane agriculture, that require big chunks of homogenous land and the incomes accrued therefrom. This suggests that NbS ought to directly benefit host communities; else, they risk being outcompeted by other economically viable land uses. Practical implication. Therefore, future policy should be designed to facilitate win–win scenarios for NbS and other community land use practices. Facilitating NbS at a national scale using the bottom‐up approach would offer opportunities for community buy‐in and sustainability of such NbS. National Land Use Policy should consider local landscape zoning to include NbS and/or the aspect of ‘nature’ as a key zone amidst the other land uses. This could be brought off by raising awareness on the benefits NbS could yield for conservation and humanity. This would encourage more households to strike a balance between competing land uses, such as commercial sugarcane growing, that require big chunks of homogenous land, and the implementation of NbS to degraded landscapes around the Budongo Central Forest Reserve, Uganda.

BackgroundThe concept of nature-based solutions (NBS) has evolved as an umbrella concept to describe approaches to learning from and using nature to create sustainable socio-ecological systems. Furthermore, NBS often address multiple societal challenges that humans are facing in the medium to long-term and as such can enhance human well-being (HWB). This study was commissioned to fulfil the need for a targeted systematic evidence map on the linkage between NBS and HWB to support focused research going forward that addresses the key knowledge needs of policy makers in the UK and beyond.MethodsA consultation with policy makers and government agency staff (n = 46), in the four component parts of the UK (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) was conducted in spring 2019. This identified four key societal challenges of operational experience lacking a scientific evidence base. Three of these challenges related to management issues: NBS cost-efficacy, governance in planning, environmental justice. The fourth challenge related to the acoustic environment (soundscape). Using systematic methods, this study searched for and identified studies that assessed NBS on HWB with regard to these four selected societal challenges.Review findingsA total of 7287 articles were returned from the systematic search and screened for suitability at the level of title and abstract. A total of 610 articles passed screening criteria to warrant full text screening. Of these, 115 studies met the full text criteria for eligibility in the final systematic map database. Included studies were coded for twelve NBS interventions and ten HWB related outcome categories. Most of the evidence reviewed referred to natural, blue or green infrastructure in the urban environment and focused on economic, material and health aspects of HWB. Less than 2% of studies identified in the searches robustly reported the role of NBS actions or interventions on HWB compared with non-NBS actions or interventionsConclusionThis systematic map found the evidence base is growing on NBS-HWB linkages, but significant biases persist in the existing literature. There was a bias in favour of the urban environment and restoration studies focused on conservation aspects, with only a few studies investigating the full suite of advantages to HWB that can be delivered from NBS actions and interventions. The soundscape was the least studied of the societal challenges identified as being of key importance by policy makers, with cost-efficiency the most reported. There was a lack of robust long-term studies to clearly test the potential of NBS regarding the HWB outcomes compared with non-NBS alternatives. This lack of robust primary knowledge, covering all four key societal challenges identified, confirms that the knowledge gaps identified by the policy makers persist, and highlights a clear research need for long-term, transdisciplinary studies that focus on comparisons between NBS and non-NBS alternatives

The concept and application of nature-based solutions (NBS) have been rapidly progressing in Europe and Latin America, reflecting a transition in the way that urban governance is perceived. There is a large call for the collaborative, polycentric, and interdisciplinary governance of NBS. However, research on options for operationalising these governance processes in different contexts is still insufficient. This study explores and analyses the operationalisation of NBS adaptive governance in Europe and Latin America. Seven cities that are part of the project EU-H2020 CONEXUS have been selected as case studies: Barcelona, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, Santiago de Chile, São Paulo, and Turin. This contribution aims to (i) understand how NBS governance processes are managed; (ii) identify the main positive and negative factors that influence NBS adaptive governance; and (iii) understand common factors and relationships that can hinder or drive forward adaptive governance for NBS in the investigated contexts. The results revealed common priorities indicating a shared pathway for Europe and Latin America; however, context-dependent specificities were also observed. These findings can be used to support cities in both European and American contexts in developing plans and actions for the more efficient enabling of NBS implementation and governance through adaptive governance.

Nature-based solutions in the urban context: terminology, classification and scoring for urban challenges and ecosystem services

The Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) concept is the most recent entry to discussions around how “nature” can be mobilized to render urban areas more resilient to the threat of climate change. The concept has been championed by the European Commission (EC) as a tool that can transform contemporary environmental, social and economic challenges into opportunities for innovation, bolstering Europe's position as a leader in climate change mitigation and adaptation. With its current research and innovation programme—Horizon 2020—the EC looks to position itself as the global NBS frontrunner, providing funding to cities to act as NBS demonstrator projects across the continent. These are expected to provide best-practice examples that can be replicated globally. This paper focuses on three Horizon 2020-funded NBS demonstrator projects: Connecting Nature, URBAN GreenUP and Grow Green, each of which brings together a suite of urban partners from both within and outside the European Union (EU). It examines the internal “politics” i.e., the aims and internal governance and implementation issues associated with these projects, and analyses how partners perceive the NBS concept. To engage with these aims, interviews were conducted with a diverse set of NBS “practitioners” working within the three projects. Analysis showed that the projects aim to influence climate-change resilient and sustainable urbanism through the process of retrofitting cities with small-scale green and blue interventions, as well as help the EU secure stronger diplomatic relations with neighboring non-EU countries and key international trade partners. It also illustrated that for many project partners, NBS is perceived to be a novel concept, because it re-frames pre-existing terms such as Green and Blue Infrastructure (GBI) and Ecosystem Services (ES) in a way that makes principles of urban greening more understandable to lay audiences and more politically palatable for urban governments. However, partners also warn that this framing of NBS has led to a narrow and idealized representation of nature; one that simultaneously undervalues biodiversity and oversells the capacity of natural processes to provide “solutions” to urban climate vulnerability and broader patterns of unsustainable urbanism.

Relocation of the capital city from Jakarta to Nusantara does not necessarily reduce the population pressure and does not solve Jakarta's environmental problems. One of the newest concepts that mainstreaming urban resilience in order to adapt to the climate change impact is nature-based solutions. For this reason, it is necessary to look for the potential for this concept to be applied in Jakarta, which aims to contribute to a sustainable future city design for Jakarta. A qualitative descriptive study was conducted through a literature review by comparing case studies in various cities in the world to obtain information on the latest developments in the concept of nature-based solutions. Various nature-based solutions that have been successfully implemented by cities in the world can be adapted for implementation in Jakarta by taking into account their feasibility and suitability to the characteristics of Jakarta. The regeneration of Jakarta as a resilient and sustainable city can be done by prioritizing nature-based solutions, such as renaturalization and rewilding. Renaturalization is not only focused on park development, but on rainwater management and restoration of watershed quality with a multifunctional utilization design. In addition, well-managed rewilding can become an option to increase biodiversity. Various nature-based solutions that have been successfully implemented by cities in the world can be adapted for implementation in Jakarta by taking into account their feasibility and suitability to the characteristics of Jakarta. The focus of green city development which is only on the development of green open spaces has resulted in the failure to provide solutions to environmental issues and urban sustainability. Deeper citizen engagement is required for the implementation of inclusive nature-based solutions. With the increasing environmental challenges faced by Jakarta, it is necessary to transform the city into a more resilient and sustainable city with a holistic approach by adopting the concept of a circular city for the management of limited resources.

Many national governments have incorporated nature‐based solutions (NbS) in their plans to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions. However, uncertainties persist regarding both feasibility and consequences of major NbS deployment. Using the United Kingdom as a national‐level case study, we examined the potential contribution of three terrestrial NbS: peatland restoration, saltmarsh creation and woodland creation. While there is substantial political and societal interest in these three NbS, they also have strong potential for competition with other land uses, which will be a critical barrier to substantial deployment. We conducted a national mapping exercise to assess the potential area available for woodland creation. We then assessed the combined climate change mitigation potential to 2100 for the three NbS options under a range of ambition levels. In line with the most ambitious targets examined, 2 Mha of land is potentially available for new woodland. However, climate change mitigation benefits of woodland are strongly dependent on management choices. By 2100, scenarios with a greater proportion of broadleaved woodlands outsequester non‐native conifer plantations, which are limited by regular timber harvesting. Peatland restoration offers the greatest mitigation per unit area, whilst the contribution from saltmarsh creation is limited by the small areas involved. Overall, the contribution of these NbS to the United Kingdom’s net zero emissions target is relatively modest. Even with the most ambitious targets considered here, by 2100, the total cumulative mitigation from the three NbS is equivalent to only 3 years' worth of UK emissions at current levels. Policy implications. Major deployment of nature‐based solutions (NbS) is possible in the United Kingdom but reaching ‘net zero’ primarily requires substantial and sustained reductions in fossil fuel use. However, facilitating these NbS at the national scale could offer many additional benefits for people and biodiversity. This demands that policy‐makers commit to a UK‐wide strategic approach that prioritises the ‘nature’ aspect of NbS. In the push to reach ‘net zero’, climate change mitigation should not be used to justify land management practices that threaten biodiversity ambitions.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) include a wide spectrum of situations: natural and seminatural green spaces, urban forests, designed gardens and parks, green road lines and roundabouts, bio-swales, productive gardens, green roofs and walls. In each site, the challenge is to provide the best solution according to the environmental and cultural context and the citizens’ demand. The urban horticulture in synergy with NBS provides to design, realise and manage green solutions for specific problems in the urban context. NBS supplies actions able to improve urban resilience and many opportunities for improving urban quality, optimising the delivering of a mixed range of ecosystem services (ES). This chapter highlights that NBS can be used for monitoring, soil, air and water quality, water matrices and pollinator diversity. We therefore describe methods for monitoring the quality of soil, air, water matrices and pollinator diversity and abundance. In conclusion, we point out some key aspects, under an interdisciplinary perspective, in order to promote further and deeper knowledge in the application of NBS in the urban environments.

Reinforcement of the concept of nature-based solutions in urban environments calls for their better introduction and linkage into urban planning. The paper is focused on the relationship between nature-based solutions and spatial realities, based on reciprocity among natural processes and urban patterns, emphasising the recognition of using and mimicking natural processes in urban environments. A classification framework as a form of knowledge aggregation is suggested. A matrix that simultaneously addresses the role of natural processes in nature-based solutions and the ability of such processes to deliver results for improving urban environments is proposed. Accordingly, there are three characteristic groups of solutions suggested, (1) those only using natural processes, (2) those using and mimicking natural processes and (3) those only mimicking natural processes, which implementation potentials are commented against four different types of urban patterns, to show what group of the nature-based solutions may best suit any type of spatial agglomeration. Beside green infrastructure as currently the most often addressed manifestation of nature-based solutions in cities, the paper reflects also on the physical processes as inevitable parts of nature. In relation to urban planning, sites and their characteristics are seen as a crucial aspect of nature-based solutions. The arguments are built upon exhaustive literature and case studies review, resulted in the matrix showing the matching relations among nature-based solutions and societal challenges aiming for better urban environment. Additionally, there are also sets of recommendations for bridging the policy-implementation gaps to bring nature-based solutions closer to urban planning, suggested.

Urban flooding is an increasingly pressing challenge confronting cities worldwide. As urbanization accelerates and climate change intensifies, the frequency and severity of flooding events are on the rise, posing significant threats to lives, livelihoods, and infrastructure. In the face of this growing crisis, the imperative for effective and sustainable solutions has never been more urgent. This book, "Nature Based Solutions to Prevent Urban Flooding," authored by Shashikant Nishant Sharma and Dauda Ayuba, emerges as a timely and comprehensive resource offering insights, strategies, and practical approaches to mitigate urban flooding through nature-based interventions. The concept of nature-based solutions (NBS) harnesses the inherent resilience and adaptability of natural systems to address complex urban challenges. By integrating green infrastructure, ecosystem restoration, and sustainable land management practices, NBS offer a multifaceted approach to urban flood management that not only reduces flood risk but also enhances ecosystem services, improves urban livability, and fosters climate resilience. Drawing upon a wealth of interdisciplinary knowledge and practical experience, Sharma and Ayuba delve into the theoretical foundations, case studies, and best practices surrounding NBS implementation in urban environments. From the revitalization of urban wetlands and creation of green corridors to the promotion of permeable pavements and rainwater harvesting systems, this book explores a diverse array of NBS approaches tailored to specific urban contexts. Moreover, the authors highlight the economic, social, and environmental co-benefits associated with NBS adoption, underscoring the value proposition for policymakers, urban planners, engineers, and community stakeholders alike. Through a nuanced analysis of policy frameworks, governance mechanisms, and stakeholder engagement strategies, they elucidate the pathways toward mainstreaming NBS into urban planning and decision-making processes.

The concept of the Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) inclusion in urban planning has become one of the strategic avenues towards the attainment of sustainable, climate-resilient, and habitable urban areas. Nevertheless, even with the increased understanding of their environmental and social importance, NBS are not uniformly reflected in urban policies and institutions. This paper focuses on the convergence of policy framework, governance systems and institutional structures that influence mainstreaming of NBS in urban settings. On the basis of an extensive analysis of the current state of empirical and conceptual research, the paper reveals the main problems of governance, namely the fragmentation of regulatory tools, lack of cross-sectoral coordination, and institutional capacity. The review indicates that a successful NBS integration relies on adaptive governance schemes, coherent multilevel alignment of policy, and participatory institutional schemes that are conducive to innovation and accountability. In addition, European and world case studies have shown that policy planning (collaboration), long-term funding approach and inter-agency collaboration are important to maintain NBS outcomes. The paper suggests that to entrench NBS into more inclusive urban governance and planning systems, regulatory reform is necessary, as well as, the development of inclusive and knowledge-based institutional ecosystems with the potential of bridging science, policy, and community practice.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) is the latest contribution to the green concept family. NBS is defined as actions based in nature addressing societal challenges. In this study, we lean on the concept boundary object, broken down into three analytical categories: use, core ideas and granularities, to explore the cohesive and fragmenting powers of the NBS concept, and discuss its future role in green space governance.The study is based on a structured, qualitative review of 112 scientific peer-reviewed publications that use the term NBS. Most publications are from 2017 or later, highlighting the novelty of the NBS concept. The concept has a strong footing in the European urban context. Flood mitigation and functional ecosystems and biodiversity conservation are the most targeted sustainability goals in the publications, and a diversity of solutions are considered. There is a close link between the NBS concept, green infrastructure, and the ecosystem service concept, indicating a path dependency in its uptake and use. The publications demonstrate a low level of integration of the NBS concept (i.e. it is commonly used as a buzz word). Most empirical studies focus solely on environmental benefits delivered by NBS, and few studies assess social, economic, and environmental benefits together, which is a central ambition of the concept.We conclude that the NBS concept is working on the boundaries between different scientific disciplines and between science and policy. Depending on how the research community deals with identified temporal, epistemological and ontological granularities, we conclude that the concept has three potential developmental pathways; broader and deeper, biased with stickiness to older green concepts and an empty buzz word.