Nature-Based Solutions for Societal Goals Under Climate Change in Urban Areas – Synthesis and Ways Forward

Abstract

Climate change and urbanisation are amongst the greatest global challenges society is facing today. The concept of nature-based solutions has recently been highlighted as key concept in policy and management in achieving alignment of environmental and societal goals (Cohen-Shacham et al. 2016;Kabisch et al. 2016a). The chapters of this volume assess the evidence, debate different concepts, identify policy avenues and display practical management applications that highlight the potential of nature-based solutions in tackling global challenges related to climate change and urbanisation. The authors critically review and present recent findings how urban ecosystem management can be employed to adapt to climate change effects, while at the same time contributing to social and health benefits. The examples discussed for ecosystem services and co-benefits in this volume comprise case studies concerning climate change adaptation by enhancing the regulation of N. Kabisch (*)

Enabling Green and Blue Infrastructure to Improve Contributions to Human Well-Being and Equity in Urban Systems

“…Where policy, planning, and management have historically treated grey and green infrastructural networks as separate, we now see a trend of increasing integration for using GBI to address urban resilience and sustainability goals together with prevailing technical infrastructures (Grimm et al 2016, Kabisch et al 2017, Meerow and Newell 2017). Examples of integration include hybrid solutions (e.g., urban runoff and sustainable drainage systems or heat protection installations; Depietri and McPhearson 2017) and integrated planning frameworks (e.g., Pauleit et al 2019).…”

“…Green and blue spaces and their functional connections and interrelations within and adjacent to cities have the potential to provide a broad range of ES to urban residents (e.g., Gómez-Baggethun et al 2013, Haase et al 2014). By addressing pressing issues such as temperature increases, poor environmental quality, and limited social inclusion, GBI is also held to contribute to the mitigation of broader urban sustainability challenges, such as climate change impacts, needs for outdoor recreation, and spaces for social activity (Kabisch et al 2017, Elmqvist et al 2018).…”

Hydromorphological and socio-cultural assessment of urban rivers to promote nature-based solutions in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic

“…As a result, urban water management is shifting from gray-engineered infrastructures towards a new approach that combines the latter with ecosystem management strategies that enhance the blue-green infrastructure (BGI) of cities in an integrative manner (Kabisch et al 2016 ). BGI provides multiple ecosystem services for citizens by integrating natural and semi-natural systems such as forests, rivers, floodplains, wetlands, parks, gardens, greenways, and green roofs, inside or connected to a city, with gray infrastructure (Haase 2015 ; Voskamp and Van de Ven 2015 ).…”

Neighbourhood character affects the spatial extent and magnitude of the functional footprint of urban green infrastructure

“…Many ecosystem services need to be generated where people live, work and spend most of their time rather than at a distance, which make the spatial arrangement of different land uses and cross boundary interactions critically important (Colding 2007;Blitzer et al 2012;Andersson et al 2015). On these grounds, strategically integrating UGI into the urban fabric has been presented as a direct instrument for changing the overall functionality and liveability of cities (Kabisch et al 2017).…”