A framework for assessing and implementing the co-benefits of nature-based solutions in urban areas

TLDR

Urban climate resilience, health, and well‑being are increasingly addressed through nature‑based solutions that deliver co‑benefits such as improved attractiveness, quality of life, and green jobs, yet few frameworks exist to assess these benefits. This paper develops a holistic framework for assessing the co‑benefits and costs of nature‑based solutions across socio‑cultural, socio‑economic, biodiversity, ecosystem, and climate dimensions. The framework, built from a review of over 1,700 documents covering ten societal challenges, is operationalized as a seven‑stage process that identifies problems, selects and assesses NBS, designs and implements solutions, engages stakeholders, scales up, and monitors outcomes. The authors find that nature‑based solutions can generate environmental, social, and economic co‑benefits or costs across the ten challenges, and that the framework and process provide a valuable tool for guiding policy and project implementation.

Abstract

To address challenges associated with climate resilience, health and well-being in urban areas, current policy platforms are shifting their focus from ecosystem-based to nature-based solutions (NBS), broadly defined as solutions to societal challenges that are inspired and supported by nature. NBS result in the provision of co-benefits, such as the improvement of place attractiveness, of health and quality of life, and creation of green jobs. Few frameworks exist for acknowledging and assessing the value of such co-benefits of NBS and to guide cross-sectoral project and policy design and implementation. In this paper, we firstly developed a holistic framework for assessing co-benefits (and costs) of NBS across elements of socio-cultural and socio-economic systems, biodiversity, ecosystems and climate. The framework was guided by a review of over 1700 documents from science and practice within and across 10 societal challenges relevant to cities globally. We found that NBS can have environmental, social and economic co-benefits and/or costs both within and across these 10 societal challenges. On that base, we develop and propose a seven-stage process for situating co-benefit assessment within policy and project implementation. The seven stages include: 1) identify problem or opportunity; 2) select and assess NBS and related actions; 3) design NBS implementation processes; 4) implement NBS; 5) frequently engage stakeholders and communicate co-benefits; 6) transfer and upscale NBS; and 7) monitor and evaluate co-benefits across all stages. We conclude that the developed framework together with the seven-stage co-benefit assessment process represent a valuable tool for guiding thinking and identifying the multiple values of NBS implementation.