Prelims

Half Title Page

Nature-Based Solutions for More Sustainable Cities

Title Page

Nature-Based Solutions for More Sustainable Cities – A Framework Approach for Planning and Evaluation

Edited by

Edoardo Croci

Bocconi University, Italy

And

Benedetta Lucchitta

Bocconi University, Italy

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2022

Editorial matter and selection © 2022 Edoardo Croci and Benedetta Lucchitta. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

Individual chapters © 2022 the authors. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

Chapter 14 © 2022 FAO. Published under a non-exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: permissions@emeraldinsight.com.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters' suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80043-637-4 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80043-636-7 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80043-638-1 (Epub)

List of Tables and Figures

About the Editors

Opens in a new window.

Benedetta Lucchitta holds an MSc in Planning and policies for cities and environment and is currently a PhD candidate in urban planning and policies at IUAV University in Venice. She has worked as a researcher at GREEN since 2014 focusing on ecosystem services assessment, nature-based solutions, and climate change adaptation and mitigation policies at the urban level.

Opens in a new window.

Edoardo Croci is member of the Managing Committee and Senior Research Fellow at GREEN – Bocconi University, where he coordinates several research projects, the “Green Economy Observatory” and the “Smart City Observatory.” His research and teaching activity are focused on environmental and climate policy and evaluation with a focus on the urban scale. He chairs UERA – Urban European Research Alliance, is a member of the Thematic Group on Goal 11 (Cities) of UN-SDSN. He served as Deputy Mayor of Milan Municipality and as Administrator of the Lombardy Environmental Protection Agency.

About the Contributors

Lida Aljabar is an urban planner, researcher, and social impact strategist. She believes in an urban future that is both resilient and just. Lida is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Pratt Institute School of Architecture, where she teaches courses in Urban Placemaking and Management and Planning for Coastal Resilience. Lida also leads climate resilient neighborhood planning and design initiatives at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Previously, she led the Climate-Smart Cities program at The Trust for Public Land, advancing green infrastructure for climate equity in cities across the United States, and has worked as a parks and open spaces planner in the Washington, DC area. She presents internationally on cities, climate change and environmental equity.

Maria Beatrice Andreucci focuses her professional activity, research, and teaching on the application of environmental technological design and economic theories, principles, and methods on urban design, architecture, and landscape architecture projects. She is a Research Professor at Sapienza University of Rome, UERA Steering Board Member, IFLA Advisory Council Chair, and COST Action “Implementing NBS for creating a resourceful circular city” core team member.

Adam Barker is an Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer at University of Manchester, UK, with research experience in environmental assessment, spatial planning, and climate change adaptation. Currently he lectures on the MSc in Environmental Impact Assessment and Management (EIAM) in the Department of Planning and Environmental Management. He is a Chartered Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (MRTPI) and Academic Member of the Landscape Institute (AMLI).

Ryan Bartlett has worked for more than a decade in water policy, climate risk assessment, and adaptation and resilience. He leads WWF's work developing integrated climate risks and ecosystem service assessments to support improved planning for conservation and sustainable development. He holds a master's degree in environmental management from Duke University.

Carine Bernede is a Civil engineer graduated from Ecole des Ingénieurs de la Ville de Paris (1995) and Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (1999). Carine Bernede achieved her career in the departments of the city of Paris. She worked a lot on public space projects, for example the cover of the ring road, or the transformation of the river Seine Banks into a pedestrian area. She has been director of parks and environment from december 2014 to novembrer 2020. She is now diretcor of development and real estate in a public establishment (EPAURIF) in charge of redevelopment for the universities campus in région Ile de France.

Stefano Boeri is an Architect and Urban Planner, as well as Full Professor at Politecnico in Milan and visiting Professor in several international universities. In Shanghai, he is Director of the Future City Lab at Tongji University. In February 2018 Stefano Boeri was appointed President of Triennale di Milano. He is Co-Chair of the Scientific Committee for the World Forum on Urban Forests.

Simone Borelli is responsible for Urban Forestry at FAO, providing technical support to member countries. He cocreated the World Forum on Urban Forests and the Tree Cities of the World Program. He coauthored the FAO Guidelines on Urban and Peri-urban Forestry and contributed to the Routledge Handbook on Urban Forestry.

Nicolas J. A. Buchoud is Cochair of the T20/G20 Infrastructure investment and financing taskforce since 2019. He created the Grand Paris Alliance in 2011, as a nonprofit think tank on sustainable metropolitan investments, after a decade serving for several city mayors and as member of the office of the President of Paris Ile de France region in charge of strategic planning. He has been appointed a fellow of the Berlin-based Global Solutions Initiative foundation in 2020.

Liesbeth Casier is a Senior Policy Advisor with IISD's Economic Law and Policy Program. She advises governments on innovation in public procurement, infrastructure planning, and policy, and works with the IISD Sustainable Asset Valuation (SAVi) methodology to make the investment case for sustainable and nature-based infrastructure.

Sarah Clement is an Environmental Policy and Governance Researcher and Lecturer in Environmental Planning and Management in the School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK. Her work focuses on the governance of biodiversity, climate change, and other environmental challenges in the Anthropocene.

Wendy Y. Chen is an Associate Professor and the Director of the International Center for China Development Studies at University of Hong Kong. She serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Urban Forestry & Urban Greening and also the Deputy Coordinator for Urban Forestry Unit under the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO). She combines expertise in urban ecology, environmental science, and economics to investigate interactions between economic development, urban ecology and environment, and urban society.

Barbara Colaninno graduated in Forestry and Environmental Sciences, and holds a PhD in Landscape Study and Design and a Master's Degree in Economics and Environmental Management. After a collaboration with PN Studio, she worked in different public administrations and studied national and European environmental legislation. She works today at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Michela Conigliaro holds an MSc in Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Management. She joined the FAO Urban and Peri-urban Forestry Program in 2012. Among other things, she coauthored the FAO Guidelines on Urban and Peri-urban Forestry and contributed to a chapter of the Routledge Handbook on Urban Forestry.

Efren Feliú is a Climate Change Manager at the TECNALIA Research and Innovation Spain. He holds a Building Engineering degree as well as different postgraduates including spatial planning and territorial development. He has relevant professional background in consultancy and capacity development for public administrations and utilities, specially focused on the fields of local sustainability, spatial planning, climate adaptation, and resilience. He is a member of the Covenant of Mayors Practitioners Group (advisory board).

Helen Finlay is a Policy Specialist with 10 years of experience working on forest management, nature for climate solutions, and corporate governance. She has extensive field research in emerging and developing economies, where she has worked with multiple stakeholders to address deforestation resulting from the international timber and agricultural trade.

Gemma Garcia-Blanco is a Senior Researcher at the TECNALIA Research and Innovation Spain. She holds a BA in Geography (University of Oviedo) and an MSc in Environmental Sciences (University of East Anglia, UK). She has research experience in the fields of spatial and urban planning, sustainability, environmental assessment, climate adaptation and resilience, and strengthening initiatives for public administrations. Her research interests include climate change adaptation, nature-based solutions, and innovative planning.

Nuria García Rueda has been a Researcher at CARTIF from 2002 to 2013, whose first activity was focused on the development of projects about waste valorization with a circular economy approach. Nuria has specialized in assessing the environmental sustainability of different solutions, applying sustainable management tools. She has experience in LCA, Eco-design, and Ecolabelling.

Erik Gómez-Baggethun, NMBU and NINA, Norway, is Professor of Environmental Governance, President of the European Society for Ecological Economics, and lead author of The economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) and the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). His main research topics include green economy, sustainable development, ecosystem services, environmental governance, and environmental values.

Silvia Gómez Valle has worked at CARTIF since 2008 in the Agri-Food and Processes Division. She is currently part of the work team of various national and international projects related to the recovery of waste, the preparation of substrates and biofertilizers, and how to improve the environment with NBS.

Ugo Guarnacci holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Reading (UK), where he is also a Visiting Fellow at the School of Politics, Economics, and International Relations. In addition, Ugo works as a Project Adviser at the European Research Executive Agency, European Commission, managing different Research & Innovation actions on sustainable cities and providing policy feedback at the EU level.

Jiali Jin studied urban forest and landscape ecology at CAF-RIF (2015–18) and University of British Columbia (2016–18). She is currently a Research Associate in Professor Cheng Wang's group.

Cecil C. Konijnendijk is a widely recognized leading scholar in the field of urban forestry. He is a Professor and Program Director at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and cofounded the Nature Based Solutions Institute in 2020. Cecil has advised local and national governments in over 30 countries on urban greening and nature-based solutions issues. He has published widely, including two seminal textbooks on urban forestry.

Kornelia Kwiecinska is a Senior Researcher at Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences Poland. She holds an MSc in Chemistry and a PhD in Environmental Engineering. She is a Member of Environmental Risk Management and Ecosystem Monitoring Center team at Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences. She has research experience in environmental impact assessment, climate change mitigation and adaptation, nature-based solutions, and green infrastructure (i.e., green roofs, vegetative environmental buffers) in environmental engineering.

Alessandra La Notte holds a PhD in Environmental Economics from the University of Trento (Italy) and a Master's Degree in Environmental Management and Development from the Australian National University (Canberra, Australia). She is specialized in environmental and ecosystem accounting and economic valuation of ecosystem services. In her current position at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, she works on Integrated system for Natural Capital Accounts.

Steffen Lehmann is an Urban Designer and a Tenured Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, where he is the Director of the Urban Futures Lab and former Director of the School of Architecture.

Jeet Mistry leads WWF initiatives on cities' climate mitigation strategy planning, financing for sustainable urban infrastructure, and on urban resilience with a focus on NBS. He holds a Masters in Environment and Sustainable Development Planning from the Bartlett School of Architecture in London.

Francesca Neonato is Professor in Environmental and Applied Botany at the Politecnico of Milan and in the postgraduate course in Healing Gardens. Founding partner of PN Studio, she conducts environmental consultancy and landscape design, as well as in an international context, in particular parks, ecological networks, regenerative agriculture, and landscape.

Leon Norking Rangel, MSc EAESP/FG, Brazil, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from the University of São Paulo (USP) and an MSc in Public Policy and Management at Fundação Getulio (FGV), with focus on environmental policy. He also works as a Political Consultant for the renewable energy sector.

Maria Chiara Pastore is Researcher at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano and Head of Research at Stefano Boeri Architetti. She is Scientific Director of Forestami, the urban forestry research project for the Metropolitan Area of Milan, a member of the scientific committee of the World Forum on Urban Forests, a former consultant to the World Bank in Sub Saharan Africa.

Blanca Pedrola is an Architect at Bipolaire Arquitectos Spain. She holds a degree in Architecture and Urban Planning (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia) and a Masters in Architectural Engineering (Civil Engineering School, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA).

Sarai Pouso, AZTI-BRTA, Spain, has more than 5 years' experience on ecological restoration and ecosystem services. Her research combines environmental, social, and economic aspects of environmental management and sustainability sciences. At her current position, she contributes to international projects to improve the management of marine resources and ecosystem services.

José A. Puppim de Oliveira is a Faculty Member at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV/EAESP and FGV/EBAPE). His research examines patterns of governance, institution building, and policy implementation at different levels, looking at how global and national institutions are interlinked to local governance and action.

Aldo Ravazzi Douvan teaches Environmental Global Governance at University of Rome 2. He has chaired the OECD committees on Biodiversity, Water and Ecosystems; Environmental Taxation; Environmental Performance Country Peer-Reviews; Integration of Environmental and Economic Policies. He is President of GBE (Green Budget Europe), cofounder of IAERE, SIE-SIEP member, a member of EAERE Policy Committee, copromoter of the European Economists Call on Carbon Pricing, Past IRI chief economist, Past chief economist at DG Sustainable Development of the Italian Ministry of Environment (Catalog of EHS-EFS, Observatory on Sustainable Finance, Natural Capital Committee, Sustainable Development Strategy), Steering Committee Member of IRP (International Resource Panel), copromoter of EU-ENEA/MA, copromoter of the EC-OECD-Italy project on EFR (Environmental Fiscal Reform) in Italy and EU, Italian expert for GGKP, CPLC, G7, G20, UNFCCC, UNCBD. He is on the Scientific Committee of Fondazione Sviluppo Sostenibile, Fondazione Centro Futuro Sostenibile, Bocconi’s Green Economy Observatory, Ecco Think Tank, as well as the Advisory Board of EU research projects Instream-Dynamix-Innopaths.

Carlos Eduardo Rigolo Lopes graduated in Social Sciences from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP), and holds an MSc in Public Policy and Management at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV). He studies ecoinnovation initiatives, besides working as a socioenvironmental consultant.

David Rojas-Rueda is an Environmental Epidemiologist with experience evaluating the health impacts of urban and transport policies, related to green spaces, heat island effects, air pollution, physical activity, and traffic accidents. David's primary research focuses on promoting a healthy urban design, and supporting mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

Hugo Rosa da Conceição has a Ph.D. from the University of Bonn, and is focused on forest policies in the Amazon. He has worked at the UNEP and the World Bank offices in Brazil, concentrating on forest conservation and environmental policy projects. He is currently a Senior Policy Officer at CDP.

Daniela Rizzi is a Senior Officer for Nature-Based Solutions and Biodiversity at ICLEI Europe. An architect and urban planner (University of São Paulo), she holds a PhD in landscape planning (Technical University of Munich). Leading work packages and/or tasks in European funded projects, which involve millions of euros in investment, she has been promoting the planning and implementation of nature-based solutions in cities to face complex environmental, social and economic challenges. Daniela engages in urban living labs and applied research to raise the impact of nature-based solutions, foster the nature-based economy and contribute to mainstreaming, awareness-raising, and capacity-building for local governments, practitioners, civil society organizations, academia, and nature-based enterprises.

Fabio Salbitano is Professor of Urban and Landscape Ecology, Silviculture, Forest and Landscape Restoration at the University of Florence. He cocreated the World Forum on Urban Forests, coauthored the FAO Guidelines on Urban and Peri-urban Forestry, and contributed to the Routledge Handbook on Urban Forestry.

Raúl Sánchez Francés works as urban greening specialist to apply this expertise in the development of Nature Based Solutions in cities and re-naturing urban plans. Since June 2005 he is working in CARTIF Foundation. Currently, he is the Head of Natural Resources and Climate Area.

Ina Säumel has been leading the research group “Multifunctional Landscapes” since 2014 at TU Berlin and shifted in 2018 to the Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems at Humboldt University. She holds a PhD in Ecology and conducts and supervises research on urban and landscape ecology, land use change, sustainable use of resources, and environmental pollution.

Michael Schwarze-Rodrian, German Landscape Planner, worked for regional and state authorities in the Ruhr region between 1987 and 2020. He planned and implemented the Emscher Landscape Park, moderated local and regional networks for sustainable urban development and green infrastructures, and served 2012–2020 as the EU Representative of the region. He is a member of the German Academy of Urban Development and Regional Planning (DASL).

Livia Shamir is a Senior Architect and Urban Researcher at Stefano Boeri Architetti and PhD candidate at the Politecnico di Milano. She is currently working as Project Leader at Stefano Boeri Architetti studio in Milan and co-coordinating the Research Department. She focuses on strategic urban planning projects, specializing in urban sustainability and resilience strategies, newly founded cities, and urban forestry strategies.

Francesco Tomasinelli has a degree in Environmental Science and works as Freelance Biologist and Photojournalist. As an ecologist he mostly does surveys and assessment on local fauna and flora in agricultural and semi-urbanized areas for PN Studio.

David Uzsoki works as a Senior Advisor and Lead, Sustainable Finance, in IISD's Economic Law and Policy Program. He applies his financial industry experience to demonstrate that sustainability can indeed improve the financial performance of investments. In the context of IISD's Sustainable Asset Valuation (SAVi) methodology, Mr. Uzsoki is responsible for modeling the financial impact of the environmental and social externalities and climate risks associated with the projects under review.

Cheng Wang is the Head of Urban Forestry Research Group in the Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry. He has a background in urban forestry and ecology. He is the main organizer of the Urban Forest Forum in China (since 2004). He has been very active at the science-policy interface and has led urban forestry planning and design in more than 60 Chinese cities during 2004–2019.

Bettina Wilk is a social scientist with a professional background in environmental governance and cultural anthropology. In her current position with ICLEI Europe as senior officer for nature-based solutions and biodiversity, she is actively contributing to several Horizon 2020 projects. Her main focus areas are co-creation and co-governance of NBS, awareness-raising for the multiple benefits of NBS and mainstreaming across policy, science and practice.

Laurin Wuennenberg is a Policy Analyst with IISD's Economic Law and Policy Program. His work focuses on sustainable public procurement, innovation, decarbonization of industries, and financing of sustainable infrastructure.

Grazia Zulian holds a PhD and a Master's Degree in Geography from the University of Padova (Italy). She is specialized in spatial modeling applied to land development, biodiversity, ecosystems condition, and ecosystem services. Since 2009 she has been working at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. In her current position she works on mapping and assessment of urban ecosystems condition, urban ecosystems services, and biodiversity.

Preface

Edoardo Croci, Benedetta Lucchitta – Bocconi University, GREEN research center

There is a growing recognition that natural capital constitutes the basis of social well-being and lasting economic development. In fact, the biosphere provides essential functions to allow human life on Planet Earth and to perform ecosystem services which, directly or indirectly, sustain human material and spiritual needs.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005) defines ecosystem services as those “multiple benefits provided by ecosystems to mankind,” including food, water, fuels and timber, and provides a classification that attributes ecosystem services to four main functional categories:

• Provisioning: this category includes all those resource supply services that natural and semi-natural ecosystems produce (fresh water, food, fuel, timber, biochemicals, genetic resources, etc.);

• Regulation: in addition to maintaining the health and functioning of ecosystems, regulatory functions include many other services that have direct and indirect benefits for humans (such as climate regulation, erosion control, water cycles regulation, waste decomposition, nutrients recycling), usually not recognized until when they are not lost or degraded;

• Cultural: natural ecosystems provide an essential “enjoyment function” and contribute to the maintenance of human health by providing opportunities for reflection, spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, and recreational and aesthetic experiences;

• Support: these functions include all those services necessary for the production of all the others ecosystem services and contribute to the conservation of biological and genetic diversity and evolutionary processes.

In order to effectively provide ecosystem services, natural capital needs to be conserved and enhanced in correspondence to human demand, to avoid depletion of natural assets because of use of nonrenewable stocks or overconsumption with respect to their reproduction rate in case of renewable stocks. Also, the conservation of natural assets is required to avoid their degradation in order to maintain the quality of ecosystem services provided.

Because of their character of positive externalities generated by nature, it is impossible for markets to adequately express the value of ecosystem services through prices.

There is thus an inevitable wedge between the market prices of goods and services and their social scarcity values. This has far-reaching implications for our conception of our place in Nature. Low market prices for Nature's goods and services have encouraged us to regard ourselves as being external to Nature.

(Dasgupta, 2021)

In order to fully appreciate the wide range of benefits generated by natural capital, economic valuation has gained a relevant role. Assigning a correct economic value to natural assets is a fundamental step for the management and protection of the ecosystems that produce them and for the definition and implementation of appropriate mechanisms and compensation tools for the externalities generated by the various anthropogenic activities. Climate change, in particular, has increased the vulnerability of natural assets which are exposed to disaster risks.

As most ecosystem services are not traded on markets but are generated and maintained in the absence of economic remuneration, they often depend on public policies to put a remedy to market failures. For this reason, bringing out the “hidden value” of ecosystem services, assessing the full social value generated by them, is a necessary step to justify their conservation through public policies and/or to establish private relationships or regulated mechanisms (e.g., Payment foe Ecosystem Services) based on optimal social choices, so to ensure the conservation and enhancement of the natural capital stock that generates them and which otherwise risks being irremediably compromised.

While the care of natural capital with reference to the global, regional, and national scales has been a relevant topic for scholars and policy makers since several decades, only recently its relevance at the urban scale has been studied, in particular in connection with the concept of nature-based solutions (NBS).

Among the several definitions of NBS the more comprehensive is “actions that conserve, manage or restore nature to support biodiversity to help address societal challenges, empower people and provide job and business opportunities can be powerful tools for combatting biodiversity loss and supporting climate change mitigation and/or adaptation and disaster risk reduction while delivering further benefits to human well-being (e.g. health).” Depending on their context, NbS are also framed as Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), Green Infrastructure (GI), Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction (EcoDRR), or Natural Water Retention Measures (NWRM) (European Commission, Directorate-General Environment (DG Environment), 2020).

Three main types of NBS can be individuated (Eggermont et al., 2015):

• solutions that involve making better use of existing natural or protected ecosystems;

• solutions based on developing sustainable management protocols and procedures for managed or restored ecosystems;

• solutions that involve creating new ecosystems.

These kinds of solutions can address several urban challenges, thanks to the multifunctional characteristics of ecosystem services. In fact, ecosystems in healthy condition provide a variety of functions and deliver multiple services contributing to benefit society. Main functions regard: improving the environment, making cities more attractive, and enhancing human well-being, restoring degraded ecosystems, developing climate change adaptation and mitigation, and improving disaster risk management and resilience (EC, 2015).

In fact, functioning ecosystems allow cities to build adaptive capacities and cope with several urban challenges, providing inter alia reduction of local air pollution, microclimatic regulation (heat island phenomenon reduction and temperature increase due to climate change), direct health benefits (such as a lower prevalence of asthma in early childhood), mortality reduction, and general health improvements, flood risk reduction, quality of life improvement: social inclusion, safety, and cultural aspects (Croci & Lucchitta, 2019). Several typologies of NBS can be implemented in cities, at different scales and purposes, such as green roofs and walls, urban parks and gardens, green corridors, river stream restoration, streets greening, urban farming, sustainable urban drainage systems, temporary flooding areas, and urban forests.

The book aims to provide a comprehensive framework for the design, planning, implementation, and evaluation of NBS in urban contexts, in order to systematize a sparse and not homogeneous knowledge, through a multidisciplinary approach, integrating natural sciences, urban planning, environmental economics, naturalistic engineering, and urban landscaping. In fact, cities are facing a broad range of challenges, and have assumed a central role also in International policies, as evidenced by goal 11 of Agenda 2030 and the New Urban Agenda promoted by the United Nations. Both consider the relevance of the presence of nature in urban contexts. Moreover, one of the Urban Agenda objectives is to integrate disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and mitigation considerations and measures into resilience-based and climate-effective design of spaces, buildings and construction, services and infrastructure, and NBS.

So, there is growing recognition and awareness that nature can help provide viable solutions to reduce vulnerability and generate value deploying the properties of natural ecosystems and the services they provide. Investing in nature can lead to substantial environmental, social, and economic benefits by reducing pollution, decreasing energy costs, improving health and well-being, and increasing resilience to climate change and natural disasters. In order to make a clear case of performances, impacts, and benefits generated by NBS in cities, a comprehensive framework approach is delivered, from design and planning of NBS to their socioeconomic evaluation.

The book provides:

• a methodological framework to design, plan, implement, maintain, and evaluate NBS in cities;

• a classification of NBS to contribute to face specific challenges in cities (heat waves, flood risk, air pollution, etc.);

• the assessment of policies and instruments to foster the implementation of NBS in cities;

• an analysis of the impacts (social, economic, and environmental) generated by NBS in cities;

• several case studies to highlight the capacity of NBS to cope with cities' challenges.

To achieve these objectives the book is structured in five sections, starting from framing and defining urban NBS, then dealing with their design and planning, passing to evaluating their economic and social impacts, up to assessing governance instruments at different scales. The final chapter provides reference cases and best practices from global cities (Paris, New York, Beijing) and other urban contexts territories (Belo Horizonte, Ruhr, etc.).

The first section is focused on the assessment and description of the multifunctionality of NBS to highlight the benefits generated by them on the quality of the environment, landscape, and socioeconomic dimensions with specific reference to urban contexts. A classification of NBS is defined to identify challenges cities have to cope with (urban heat island effect, flood risk, air pollution, etc.) and to describe the ecosystem services they provide, in order to identify a clear framework of the potential benefits generated by NBS at the urban level highlighting why it is fundamental to reinforce the presence of nature in cities. The nature-based solutions concept has emerged as a strong, recent attempt for “mainstreaming” nature in political, planning, and economic areas. Starting from a description of the role of nature in cities, C. Konijnendijk introduces the NBS concept and its current spread and implementation in an urban context. The contribution of NBS to resilience, health, and well-being, biodiversity is focused on the following chapters. In particular R. Bartlett provides a brief historical review of NBS to address increasing climate extremes in urban areas and emphasizes the importance of connectivity and scale, assessing the direct effects of climate change on potential NBS performance, 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. D. Rojas-Rueda shows how urban nature is essential for citizens' health; several studies put in evidence that green spaces can support a healthy lifestyle, improving individual and populational health and reducing the vulnerability of communities to the pandemic. S. Clement explores the ways in which NBS might become an essential part of the solution to biodiversity and ecosystem decline and 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. A. La Notte and G. Zulian provide a framework linking urban ecosystems, NBS, and ecosystem services, thus facilitating sustainability assessment in urban ecosystems, by quantifying the presence of NBS, whose creation/maintenance assure the delivery of ecosystem services.

Notions and principles for NBS design and planning are described in the second section, taking into account the wide range of NBS to face cities' challenges such as urban regeneration and biodiversity. The integration potential of the NBS in cities' planning is carried out to highlight their capacity to cope with different cities' needs. The adoption of NBS is considered in alternative and complementarity with traditional gray solutions also taking into account the potential use of hybrid solutions. Another fundamental aspect of the definition of NBS relies on the involvement of different stakeholders, so innovative codesign and coparticipation techniques are described. S. Lehmann discusses the opportunities and benefits of applying the concepts of renaturalization and rewilding of cities applying NBS in two areas: new green neighborhoods, and the regeneration and regreening of existing but neglected parts of the city, putting in evidence how essential it is that the design of NBS is fully integrated with other complementary planning interventions and seeks synergies across all sectors. S. Boeri, M.C. Pastore, and L. Shamir discuss the integration of green systems within the complex built environment, providing several examples also driven from their personal experiences. A. Barker, E. Feliù, G. Garcia-Blanco, B. Pedrola, and K. Kwiecinska stress the need for an approach which is both scenarios focused and fully integrated within existing spatial planning frameworks, drawing specific attention to the utility of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) in both embedding environmental evaluation within mainstream spatial planning and providing the basis for the comparative evaluation of alternatives. M. B. Andreucci provides multidisciplinary knowledge on the effectiveness of experimenting with NBS for urban regeneration policy, planning, design, and governance, creating an understanding of what type of NBS development process can bring forward sustainable urban development, the different stakeholders that might be involved, the nature of their involvement, and the relationship between the actors, considering the experiences of Barcelona, Copenhagen, and Marseille. B. Wilk, I. Säumel, and D. Rizzi classify and explore the spectrum of nongovernment actor-led governance arrangements for the cocreation of NBS across different European contexts. Case studies from pilot demonstrators in current European Horizon 2020 projects are used to illustrate collaborative governance arrangements within the operating space of cocreation and delineate respective actor roles.

The evaluation of NBS impacts is relevant to foster their diffusion, as in most cases the natural resources and ecosystem services they provide are not exchanged on markets as they have public or common goods characteristics. The ecosystem services approach allows taking into consideration all the impacts generated by NBS at the urban level to reveal the hidden value of nature that markets are not able to catch. Trade-offs implied by the choice of NBS and potential disservices produced by them are also considered. In the third section a set of KPIs is also defined to facilitate the impact assessment of NBS. R. Sánchez Francés, S. Gómez Valle, N. García Rueda, B. Lucchitta, and E. Croci provide a comprehensive assessment framework for the evaluation of the contribution of NBS in cities, linking NBS typologies with specific ecosystem services provided and proposing a set of KPIs for the assessment of the impacts generated by NBS in cities. E. Croci and B. Lucchitta identify and analyze the most used methodologies adopted at the urban level for the valuation of ES, linking them to provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting categories of ecosystem services provided by NBS. S. Pouso and E. Gómez-Baggethun apply integrated valuation of ecosystem services in two Spanish cities, Barcelona and Bilbao, combining different valuation techniques and metrics, both monetary and nonmonetary. S. Borelli, M. Conigliaro, and F. Salbitano show how, if well planned and managed, green spaces can promote social inclusiveness by enhancing the liveability of neighborhoods and promoting the development of social interactions; for this purpose urban green spaces must be designed as places for multiple and diverse social groups.

The correct valuation of costs and benefits of NBS allows arising innovative business models to catch the social value generated by them. At the same time, innovative policy tools are being adopted to facilitate the development of NBS with diversified functions. The fourth section performs an analysis of business models, financial and economic instruments, and the most suitable policies to foster the adoption of NBS in cities and to involve public and private stakeholders in their implementation and management. A focus is dedicated to the costs related to NBS implementation, maintenance, and management. U. Guarnacci examines the capacity of city networks in putting NBS in the agenda of international negotiations and to foster cocreation and codeployment of NBS to tackle global environmental challenges and promote climate-resilient communities, following a concept of urban diplomacy. A. Ravazzi explores the range of policy instruments available to promote NBS in cities, in particular analyzing the promising features of economic and market-based instruments. D. Uzsoki, L. Casier, and L. Wuennenberg provide an overview of financing solutions (public, private, and blended instruments) for different types of NBS and their applicability to NBS in the urban context, taking into account the different possibilities to capture the value they generate. B. Colaninno, F. Neonato, and F. Tomasinelli provide a step-by-step procedure to assess the ecosystem services provided by green areas in cities, compared to design, building, and maintenance costs, also with reference to specific examples. H. Rosa da Conceição and H. Finlay present some of the opportunities for businesses in implementing NBS, such as the risk and cost reductions, compliance with regulatory requirements, and reputational and financial gains.

Section five is composed of a selection of significant case studies referred to the topics of previous chapters. Best practices from global cities and other local contexts in different countries and regions are analyzed to demonstrate the effective benefits generated by NBS. M. Schwarze-Rodrian presents the evolution of NBS in the Ruhr region, one of the first examples of regeneration of a former industrial area through nature. N. Buchoud and C. Bernede analyze the role of NBS in the massive public investments in Paris and its region, mainly driven by transportation infrastructures. W. Y. Chen C. Wang and J. Jin present a comprehensive overview of the Beijing Afforestation Scheme, characterized by a shift from outcome-driven to integrated ecological resilience, a change from recreating tree rows to restoring natural boreal forest, and an evolution from top-down to adaptive and inclusive governance. L. Aljabar reviews three cases of community environmental stewardship in New York City, including a distributed community garden movement, restoration of a polluted waterway, and an emerging framework for adaptive coastal protection; these cases emphasize a socioecological view of the city's ecology, showing that we must consider natural resources as places which have social and cultural meaning, not merely spaces with ecological functions. L. Norking Rangel, C. Rigolo Lopes, and J. A. Puppim de Oliveira discuss the DRENURBS initiative in Belo Horizonte, a program for urban water drainage using natural ecosystems, so transforming the logic of canalizing water streams into a new NBS with significant positive impacts on biodiversity and social benefits. Finally, D. Rizzi and B. Wilk highlight how cocreation processes have been applied for the implementation of NBS in different organizational systems, governance, and cultural settings around the world, driving cases from Peru, the United States, and Korea, and showing how collaborative governance arrangements for NBS have played out in different contexts.

The book includes the analysis of multiple dimensions of NBS in cities, considering environmental, social, and economic impacts. The innovative methodology based on the ecosystem services approach for the evaluation of NBS allows taking into account the multiple impacts generated by NBS. Moreover, the in-depth analysis of business models and financial instruments for NBS development provides a clear framework to support private and public stakeholders in NBS implementation and management. Case studies give evidence of innovative approaches to improve quality of life, the environment, and economic opportunities through the implementation of NBS in cities.

The book is targeted to a wide audience, including scholars and students in several disciplines on ecosystems and NBS, policy makers, urban planners, architects and engineers involved in the use of nature, and operators in the private sector providing goods and services (including financial ones) in this field.