Engineering nature-based solutions: examining the barriers to effective intervention

Abstract

A growing body of research is examining how Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are offering planners, politicians and engineers options to promote respond to a wide range of biophysical and socio-economic problems. However, despite the increasing popularity of NBS, there is limited analysis available on how these ‘solutions’ align with urban problems, at what scale they are most effective, and what costs are associated with investment in urban nature. This paper analyses current approaches to urban sustainability via an examination of the EU Funded Horizon 2020- funded project, URBAN GreenUP, in Liverpool (UK) to deconstruct how rhetoric translates to practical applications of NBS interventions. It interrogates the interactions of projects, policies and political buy-in for NBS, and argues that an integrated understanding of scale, function, and location is needed to successfully address issues of urban climate change vulnerability. This is contextualised against the wider discussions of NBS associated with other EU-funded projects. It concludes that although investment in NBS offer a useful approach to development, they cannot overcome existing barriers to investment in environmental improvements without attention to the same barriers that have always existed. Moreover, the paper argues that the promotion of NBS as solutions to problems is only effective when the problems are transparently and collaboratively defined.

Mainstreaming Nature-Based Solutions in City Planning: Examining Scale, Focus, and Visibility as Drivers of Intervention Success in Liverpool, UK

“…A further commonality across these debates is the framing of NBS as a facilitator of more effective human/environmental discussions-one where nature offers direct solutions to human (and ecological) problems [19,34,38]. Within the URBAN GreenUP project, links between the ecological benefits and the associated socio-economic opportunities afforded by NBS interventions have been central, e.g., enhancing recreation, access to nature, and economic development [39]. Against this backdrop, each of the five-year Horizon 2020 R&I programs tested a range of delivery options to examine how NBS can create more sustainable and functional urban environments.…”

“…All of these are common to each Horizon 2020-funded NBS project and are identified as key factors influencing the framing of NBS in the literature. The evidence discussed above and the wider reporting on the Horizon 2020 NBS projects provide opportunities to reflect on what best practice for NBS looks like, even if the NBS interventions delivered in Liverpool do not fully align with these goals [19,[39][40][41][42][43].…”

“…This is discussed extensively in the literature and demonstrates a need to debate the variability and complexity of alternative governance models to ensure that expertise, innovation, and local knowledge are integrated into decision-making [2,10,11,16,19,20,34,50]. Where each can be aligned effectively, we can identify investment options for NBS that are locally appropriate, as well as new funding pathways and alternative management practices that make the best use of local government, private and environmental institutions and organizations, and community advocates to deliver investment in NBS [33,34,39,40].…”

Nature-based Solutions for climate-resilient cities: A proposal of a model for successful implementation

“…A study by Mohommad and Pugacheva (2022) revealed that the pandemic made people realize the significance of a healthy nature and the need for green recovery since a study by Castellar et al (2021) uncovered that nature is interpreted by people as a green factor and defined with the presence of vegetation. Lately, the approach to restoring and increase the quality and the number of green spaces and the classical perception of the water-urban ecosystem interaction in urban areas changed to Naturebased Solutions (NbS), which was first used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in the early 2000s (Mell et al, 2022;OECD, 2020;Krauze & Wagner, 2019). NbS have different definitions in the literature.…”

“…NbS have different definitions in the literature. Mell et al (2022) defined NbS as a set of aid tools to cities in terms of preventing and reducing the biophysical environment problems including climate change effects, ecological losses, risk of flooding and air quality. Frantzeskaki et al (2017) defined NbS as transition initiatives with solutions to restore nature, imitate nature and build upon nature to address place-specific environmental problems.…”