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The assessment of ecosystem services (ES) in urban areas can be an important policy instrument for both strategic directives at national and regional levels and concrete actions at municipality level. A unifying underpinning framework that combines different administrative levels through a common, consistent basis would greatly facilitate the mainstreaming of such an instrument. Three key concepts underpin this framework: urban ecosystems, nature-based solutions (NBS), and ES. First, NBS are acknowledged as the ecological assets that in the urban context can provide ES, meant as complex processes made possible through the existence of natural and seminatural systems at various scales. Second, the classification of urban ecosystems needs to be consistent with the treatment of urban areas in ecosystem accounting and with NBS levels of intervention and primary objectives. Third, by serving societal challenges, it is important to clearly frame the strategic drivers of change: whether it concerns management practices of current land use or radical conversions in land use. Finally, once such a framework will be in place, it can facilitate sustainability assessment in urban ecosystems by quantifying the presence of NBS, whose creation/maintenance assure the delivery of ES. The purpose of this chapter is to theoretically frame an ES-based approach, but this is only a first step. Many more steps are required on to concretely put this framework in practice at different administrative levels, such as strategic planning and policy setting (at national level), and urban, peri-urban, and coastal development (at municipal level).

Biodiversity loss now ranks as one of the most significant global drivers of environmental change. In an increasingly urbanized world, there is enormous potential to address this problem through conservation, restoration, and creation of new urban ecosystems. This chapter explores how nature-based solutions (NBS) can contribute to addressing the urgent problem of biodiversity loss in a way that goes beyond just greening gray environments. It then explores the alignment (and misalignment) between the ways in which NBS is framed as a nature conservation tool globally and the ways in which biodiversity is considered in urban approaches to NBS. Finally, the chapter explores the ways in which NBS might become an essential part of the solution to biodiversity and ecosystem decline. It discusses how NBS can be effectively leveraged to address the biodiversity crisis in urban areas, through conservation, restoration, and efforts to create thriving places for both people and nature. Although the concept of NBS in urban areas is fairly divorced from its nature conservation origins, reconnecting with those ecological roots is important for creating biodiverse, resilient cities. In so doing, NBS could offer a unified concept for environmental management in urban areas that integrates the ecological benefits of nature conservation with an innovative focus on confronting major societal challenges. Though this is a demanding task, it could provide a fit-for-purpose approach for conserving biodiversity and supporting functional ecosystems in the Anthropocene.

Although people have always been aware of the role and importance of green space, trees, and other nature in cities, wider recognition and policy support is of a much more recent date, for example in the context of current climate and public health challenges. The nature-based solutions concept has emerged as a strong, recent attempt for “mainstreaming” of nature in political, planning, and economic areas. Starting from a description of the role of nature in cities, this chapter introduces the nature-based solutions concept and its current spread and implementation in an urban context. It also raises some questions about the next steps in implementing the concept, perhaps moving away from too much focus on a utilitarian view of nature and ecosystem and toward considering nature as a framework for all planning and decision-making.

The adoption of nature-based solutions (NBS) for resilient cities has been receiving concern because of global threats of climate variation and a bid to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals 2030. NBS promotes a healthy environment and discourages land loss. NBS applications have been researched, especially in developing nations; however, there is a lack of evidence on their roles, impediments and drivers in southern Nigerian cities. Therefore, this study aims to systematically review the applicability of NBS for resilient urban residences (RUR) in southern Nigeria. Also, it proposes strategies for addressing environmental issues via a framework that will support future studies.

Southern Nigeria's riparian settlements are vulnerable to climate variability's devastating effects. A systematic review of literature on NBS for RUR resilience was conducted, sourcing 29 papers included in the study from 2004 to 2023 using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses from Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science databases in November 2023.

The review identified three themes: NBS's role in fostering urban resilience, impediments to its application and drivers for resilient RUR, with five roles, eight impediments and eight drivers identified in the literature.

This study explores literature on environmental drivers for practitioners promoting NBS, suggesting a qualitative research approach for advanced studies. However, the systematic review-based recommendations maintain the robustness of the NBS application for RUR in southern Nigeria, despite the need for advanced studies.

This study outlines the five roles, eight impediments and eight drivers for promoting the application of NBS in southern Nigeria. This study noted that NBS can improve urban residential precincts, maintain residents' quality of life, purify air, regulate temperature and reduce glare, urban heat and land loss. The findings can be used by environmental and construction practitioners, clients, academics and policymakers to promote NBS applications in Nigeria. Adapting NBS should be a basic consideration in residential property planning and design for building plan approval.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this systematic review analysis is the first to explore NBS application in Southern Nigeria RUR, offering flexible strategies to advance NBS in the Nigerian locale.

The study aims to examine the potential benefits of integrating nature-based solutions (NbS) in the housing sector.

The approach adopted was a systematic literature review aided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews criteria and the VOSviewer software. Abductive reasoning was used to analyze the collected data, which was then subjected to content analysis through an iterative read-and-review procedure.

The study identified green walls, indoor greenery, porous pavement and landscaping, rainwater harvesting and water purification and green roofs as elements of buildings where NbS should be incorporated. Although nature-based research on integrated greenery facades and roof applications was noted, rainwater harvesting and water purification-oriented research remained dominant. These findings demonstrate the advantages of implementing NbS in the housing sector, including energy efficiency, environmental development, flood prevention and sustainable water management. Integrating NbS into housing designs can considerably contribute to the creation of more resilient, eco-friendly and comfortable living environments. However, the adoption of NbS faces hurdles, including a lack of awareness, limited policy support and economic constraints.

This study recommends that NbS be mainstreamed into housing development and knowledge exchange opportunities between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, as well as other regions, to promote the adoption of NbS through research and collaborations. Also, it contributes to the discourse of sustainable affordable housing in the Global South while addressing United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 11, 12, 13 and 15. This study offers valuable guidance to stakeholders, thereby fostering the development of more sustainable and resilient housing practices and policies.

The study used VOSviewer software visualization to identify structural patterns and track prominent research frontiers, allowing for a more thorough yet concise mapping and capture of a scientific knowledge domain.

This chapter is in line with the strand of literature on urban environmental stewardship and examines how cities around the world have been teaming up with each other in order to foster cocreation and codeployment of nature-based solutions (NBS) to tackle global environmental challenges and promote climate-resilient communities. This chapter describes such an effort that cities made to build international alliances and networks as a new wave of “city diplomacy.” Indeed, recent environmental negotiations at the global level on sustainable development and climate change have proven how cities of different size, with diverse socioeconomic and environmental conditions, were able to put NBS on the agenda and show their transformative power for the common good. Throughout the chapter, the European policy context is always placed at the meso level, between the macro (international arena) and the micro (city) dimensions, in order to demonstrate how the European Union has been instrumental in connecting the global, regional, and local agendas on NBS for renaturing cities.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are increasingly seen as a holistic approach to a wide array of environmental and societal problems. Crucially, much of its appeal stems from its potential to address multiple challenges at once, being not only valuable for their positive impacts toward sustainability and human welfare but also their cost-effectiveness when compared to some engineered solutions. This helps to explain the growing awareness of the private sector of the market opportunities arising from the introduction of NBS to their operations. This chapter presents some of the opportunities for businesses in implementing NBS, such as the risk and cost reductions, compliance with regulatory requirements, reputational and financial gains, among others. I will also introduce some of the challenges they might face, such as the difficulties for companies to fully internalizing all benefits generated by investing in NBS, the need for long-term planning in adapting NBS in a company's operations, possible hindrances in financing innovative NBS, among others. The chapter will also showcase NBS being implemented by companies in urban contexts, based on the responses of local governments that disclose to CDP's cities questionnaire. This concluding section of the chapter provides policy recommendations for public entities to incentivize the uptake of NBS by the private sector.

Chapter 17 discusses challenges for financing nature-based solutions (NBS). Financing NBS is a key challenge to ensure scaling of the use of NBS in urban areas. This is mainly due to the difficulty to monetize the value generated through the provisioning of ecosystem services, as well as the multiple cobenefits that NBS provide. Certain types of NBS, such as green roofs, have been able to allow for private value capture, enabling such projects to attract private or blended capital. Others, where benefits are generally regarded as public good, have to rely on different financing strategies and instruments. The section provides an overview of financing solutions (public, private, and blended instruments) for different types of NBS and their applicability to NBS in the urban context.

This chapter provides a brief historical review of nature-based solutions (NBS) to address increasing climate extremes in urban areas and their surroundings, tracing their historical evolution to their current moment as du jour solutions to multiple crises. We review how this term has evolved through multiple iterations used across sectors and its current ubiquity in global policy discussion forums like the United Nations (UN) Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), due to its potential as a “swiss knife” to meet multiple global goals in climate, sustainable development, and biodiversity. We evaluate the gaps between the ubiquity of NBS in current geopolitical discourses around urban resilience and sustainability and actual implementation in cities around the world. While countries are increasingly committing to NBS and similar approaches in national climate commitments, lacking data, technical capacity, and funding continue to limit implementation beyond relatively marginal projects insufficient to shifting worsening trends in climate change and biodiversity loss. We close with four guiding principles for addressing these gaps, emphasizing the importance of connectivity and scale, assessing the direct effects of climate change on potential NBS performance, quantification and valuation, and the powerful job-creation potential of NBS in creating resilience to multiple crises, including the current global recession due to the COVID-19 pandemic.