Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Analysis
  • Published:

Global mapping of urban nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation

Nature Sustainability volume 6, pages 458–469 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Many cities around the world are experimenting with nature-based solutions (NbS) to address the interconnected climate-, biodiversity- and society-related challenges they are facing (referred to as the climate–biodiversity–society, or CBS, nexus), by restoring, protecting and more sustainably managing urban ecosystems. Although the application of urban NbS is flourishing, there is little synthesized evidence clarifying the contribution of NbS in addressing the intertwined CBS challenges and their capacity to encourage transformational change in urban systems worldwide. We map and analyse NbS approaches specifically for climate change adaptation across 216 urban interventions and 130 cities worldwide. Results suggest that current NbS practices are limited in how they may comprehensively address CBS challenges, particularly by accounting for multidimensional forms of climate vulnerability, social justice, the potential for collaboration between public and private sectors and diverse cobenefits. Data suggest that knowledge and practice are biased towards the Global North, under-representing key CBS challenges in the Global South, particularly in terms of climate hazards and urban ecosystems involved. Our results also point out that further research and practice are required to leverage the transformative potential of urban NbS. We provide recommendations for each of these areas to advance the practice of NbS for transformative urban adaptation within the CBS nexus.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Geographical distribution of cities with mapped NbS for climate change adaptation.
Fig. 2: Regional distribution of ten key NbS features included in the global mapping of interventions in cities.
Fig. 3: Examples of NbS features in selected cities that use NbS for climate adaptation.
Fig. 4: Connections between regions, funding sources, actors involved and socio-economic goals among mapped NbS.
Fig. 5: Examples of urban NbS projects exemplifying different aspects of social justice studied, as well as social, ecological, and technical transformative capacity.
Fig. 6: Summary of the distribution of capacities for change of NbS mapped per city dimension and region.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article (and its Supplementary Information) and online repositories. Information included in this published article includes the systematic mapping protocol (Supplementary Information) and the coding framework used to analyse interventions (Supplementary Data). Information available through online repositories includes the full set of coded interventions, which can be found online at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7059923. This dataset was establishing from a screening of the following nine online databases: Green Climate Fund, Adaptation Fund, International Climate Initiative, World Bank Portfolio on Nature-based Solutions for Disaster Risk Reduction, ClimateADAPT, Oppla, Panorama Ecosystem-based Adaptation Solutions Database, Urban Climate Change Research Network Case Study Docking Station and Equator Initiative Nature-based Solutions Database.

Code availability

All code used for data analysis and visualization was made through existing libraries using the R programming language (v.4.0.3 10 October 2020) in RStudio (v.2022.02.3 + 492). Relevant R libraries include ggplot2 (v.3.3.5, Figs. 1, 2, 4 and 5), dplyr (v.1.0.5, Figs. 1, 2, 4 and 5) and networkD3 (v.0.4) in conjunction with webshot (v.0.5.2, Fig. 4). Figure 2 was created using adapted code under MIT License (copyright 2015–2017, ref. 69). The rvest package (v.1.0.0) was used for certain parts of the data collection through web scraping as described in the Data synthesis section. The Geographic Information System (GIS) software QGIS (v.3.10.11) was used to render Fig. 3. Fig. 5 and Supplementary Figs. 1 and 2 were prepared using Microsoft Powerpoint (Office 365).

References

  1. Girardin, C. A. J. et al. Nature-based solutions can help cool the planet—if we act now. Nature 593, 191–194 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Seddon, N. et al. Getting the message right on nature‐based solutions to climate change. Glob. Change Biol. 27, 1518–1546 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Dodman, D. et al. in Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (eds Pörtner, H. O. et al.) 907–1040 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2022).

  4. Berrang-Ford, L. et al. A systematic global stocktake of evidence on human adaptation to climate change. Nat. Clim. Change 11, 989–1000 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Parmesan, C. et al. in Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (eds Pörtner, H. O. et al.) 197–377 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2022).

  6. Seddon, N. et al. Understanding the value and limits of nature-based solutions to climate change and other global challenges. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 375, 20190120 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Pörtner, H.-O. et al. Scientific outcome of the IPBES-IPCC co-sponsored workshop on biodiversity and climate change. Zenodo https://zenodo.org/record/4659158 (2021).

  8. Pascual, U. et al. Governing for transformative change across the biodiversity–climate–society nexus. BioScience 72, 684–704 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Seddon, N. Harnessing the potential of nature-based solutions for mitigating and adapting to climate change. Science 376, 1410–1416 (2022).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Melanidis, M. S. & Hagerman, S. Competing narratives of nature-based solutions: leveraging the power of nature or dangerous distraction? Environ. Sci. Policy 132, 273–281 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Westman, L. & Castán Broto, V. Urban transformations to keep all the same: the power of ivy discourses. Antipode 54, 1320–1343 (2022).

  12. Cousins, J. J. Justice in nature-based solutions: research and pathways. Ecol. Econ. 180, 106874 (2021).

  13. Ruangpan, L. et al. Nature-based solutions for hydro-meteorological risk reduction: a state-of-the-art review of the research area. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. 20, 243–270 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Sudmeier-Rieux, K. et al. Scientific evidence for ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction. Nat. Sustain 4, 803–810 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Chausson, A. et al. Mapping the effectiveness of nature‐based solutions for climate change adaptation. Glob. Change Biol. 26, 6134–6155 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Brink, E. et al. Cascades of green: a review of ecosystem-based adaptation in urban areas. Glob. Environ. Change 36, 111–123 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Doswald, N. et al. Effectiveness of ecosystem-based approaches for adaptation: review of the evidence-base. Clim. Dev. 6, 185–201 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Almassy, D. et al. Urban Nature Atlas: A Database of Nature-Based Solutions Across 100 European Cities (Naturvation, 2018).

  19. Xie, L. & Bulkeley, H. Nature-based solutions for urban biodiversity governance. Environ. Sci. Policy 110, 77–87 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Bayulken, B., Huisingh, D. & Fisher, P. M. J. How are nature based solutions helping in the greening of cities in the context of crises such as climate change and pandemics? A comprehensive review. J. Clean. Prod. 288, 125569 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Pedersen Zari, M., MacKinnon, M., Varshney, K. & Bakshi, N. Regenerative living cities and the urban climate–biodiversity–wellbeing nexus. Nat. Clim. Change 12, 601–604 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Hölscher, K. & Frantzeskaki, N. in Transformative Climate Governance (eds Hölscher, K. & Frantzeskaki, N.) 447–476 (Springer International, 2020).

  23. Hobbie, S. E. & Grimm, N. B. Nature-based approaches to managing climate change impacts in cities. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0124 (2020).

  24. Heikkinen, M., Ylä-Anttila, T. & Juhola, S. Incremental, reformistic or transformational: what kind of change do C40 cities advocate to deal with climate change? J. Environ. Policy Plan. 21, 90–103 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Goodwin, S., Olazabal, M., Castro, A. J. & Pascual, U. Urban nature-based solutions to climate change adaptation database. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.7059923 (2022).

  26. Adaptation Gap Report 2020 (United Nations Environment Programme, 2021); https://www.unep.org/resources/adaptation-gap-report-2020

  27. Kapos, V., Wicander, S., Salvaterra, T., Dawkins, K. & Hicks, C. The Role of the Natural Environment in Adaptation (Global Commission on Adaptation, 2019).

  28. Revi, A. et al. in Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (eds Field, C. B. et al.) 535–612 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2014).

  29. IPCC. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007).

  30. Dorst, H., van der Jagt, A., Raven, R. & Runhaar, H. Urban greening through nature-based solutions—key characteristics of an emerging concept. Sustain. Cities Soc. 49, 101620 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Nature-Based Solutions to Address Global Societal Challenges (IUCN, 2016); https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2016.13.en

  32. IUCN Global Standard for Nature-Based Solutions: A User-Friendly Framework for the Verification, Design and Scaling up of NbS 1st edn (IUCN, 2020); https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2020.08.en

  33. Pauleit, S., Zoelch, T., Hansen, R., Randrup, T. B. & van den Bosch, C. K. in Nature-Based Solutions to Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Areas: Linkages between Science, Policy and Practice (eds Kabisch, N. et al.) 29–49 (Springer, 2017).

  34. Evaluating the Impact of Nature-Based Solutions: A Handbook for Practitioners (Publications Office of the European Union, 2021).

  35. Bolund, P. & Hunhammar, S. Ecosystem services in urban areas. Ecol. Econ. 29, 293–301 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Collier, M. J. Novel ecosystems and social-ecological resilience. Landsc. Ecol. 30, 1363–1369 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. State of Finance for Nature 2021 (United Nations Environment Programme, 2021); https://www.unep.org/resources/state-finance-nature

  38. Raymond, C. M. et al. A framework for assessing and implementing the co-benefits of nature-based solutions in urban areas. Environ. Sci. Policy 77, 15–24 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Anguelovski, I. et al. Why green ‘climate gentrification’ threatens poor and vulnerable populations. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 116, 26139–26143 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  40. Shi, L. et al. Roadmap towards justice in urban climate adaptation research. Nat. Clim. Change 6, 131–137 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Tozer, L., Hörschelmann, K., Anguelovski, I., Bulkeley, H. & Lazova, Y. Whose city? Whose nature? Towards inclusive nature-based solution governance. Cities 107, 102892 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Calderón-Argelich, A. et al. Tracing and building up environmental justice considerations in the urban ecosystem service literature: a systematic review. Landsc. Urban Plan. 214, 104130 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Schlosberg, D. in Defining Environmental Justice 11–40 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2007).

  44. Feola, G. Societal transformation in response to global environmental change: a review of emerging concepts. Ambio 44, 376–390 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Hölscher, K. in Transformative Climate Governance (eds Hölscher, K. & Frantzeskaki, N.) 49–96 (Springer International, 2020).

  46. Patterson, J., Soininen, N., Collier, M. & Raymond, C. M. Finding feasible action towards urban transformation. npj Urban Sustain. 1, 28 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Markolf, S. A. et al. Interdependent infrastructure as linked social, ecological, and technological systems (SETSs) to address lock‐in and enhance resilience. Earth’s Future 6, 1638–1659 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Grabowski, Z. J. et al. Infrastructures as socio-eco-technical systems: five considerations for interdisciplinary dialogue. J. Infrastruct. Syst. 23, 02517002 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Fedele, G., Donatti, C. I., Harvey, C. A., Hannah, L. & Hole, D. G. Limited use of transformative adaptation in response to social-ecological shifts driven by climate change. Ecol. Soc. 25, 25 (2020).

  50. Esperon-Rodriguez, M. et al. Climate change increases global risk to urban forests. Nat. Clim. Change 12, 950–955 (2022).

  51. Folke, C. et al. An invitation for more research on transnational corporations and the biosphere. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 4, 494–494 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Tozer, L. et al. Catalyzing sustainability pathways: navigating urban nature based solutions in Europe. Glob. Environ. Change 74, 102521 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Toxopeus, H. & Polzin, F. Reviewing financing barriers and strategies for urban nature-based solutions. J. Environ. Manag. 289, 112371 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. McPhearson, T. et al. A social-ecological-technological systems framework for urban ecosystem services. One Earth 5, 505–518 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Hölscher, K., Frantzeskaki, N., McPhearson, T. & Loorbach, D. Tales of transforming cities: transformative climate governance capacities in New York City, U.S. and Rotterdam, Netherlands. J. Environ. Manag. 231, 843–857 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Frantzeskaki, N. Seven lessons for planning nature-based solutions in cities. Environ. Sci. Policy 93, 101–111 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Bennett, E. M. et al. Bright spots: seeds of a good Anthropocene. Front. Ecol. Environ. 14, 441–448 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Almassy, D., Maia, S. & Pinter, L. Addressing Climate Change in Cities Through Nature-Based Solutions: Cases Beyond Europe in the Urban Nature Atlas (British Academy, 2022).

  59. Kiddle, G. L. et al. Nature-based solutions for urban climate change adaptation and wellbeing: evidence and opportunities from Kiribati, Samoa, and Vanuatu. Front. Environ. Sci. 9, 723166 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Dignum, M., Dorst, H., van Schie, M., Dassen, T. & Raven, R. Nurturing nature: exploring socio-spatial conditions for urban experimentation. Environ. Innov. Soc. Transit. 34, 7–25 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  61. Guidelines and Standards for Evidence Synthesis in Environmental Management (Collaboration for Environmental Evidence, 2018); https://environmentalevidence.org/information-for-authors/

  62. James, K. L., Randall, N. P. & Haddaway, N. R. A methodology for systematic mapping in environmental sciences. Environ. Evid. 5, 7 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. City Population by Sex, City and City Type (UN Data, 2021).

  64. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision, Methodology (United Nations, 2018); https://population.un.org/wup/Publications/Files/WUP2018-Methodology.pdf

  65. Wickham, H. rvest: Easily harvest (scrape) web pages. R package version 1.0.0; https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=rvest (2021).

  66. Wickham, H., François, R., Henry, L. & Müller, K. dplyr: A grammar of data manipulation. R package version 1.0.5; https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=dplyr (2021).

  67. Haddaway, N., Macura, B., Whaley, P. & Pullin, A. ROSES for systematic review protocols. Version 1.0. 0 Bytes. Figshare https://doi.org/10.6084/M9.FIGSHARE.5897269.V4 (2018).

  68. Wickham, H. ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis (Springer-Verlag, 2016); https://ggplot2.tidyverse.org

  69. Holtz, Y. Circular stacked barplot. GitHub https://github.com/holtzy/R-graph-gallery/blob/af64bdd71b1eab37ea18134080d20d33c6306395/299-circular-stacked-barplot.Rmd (2019).

  70. Allaire, J. J., Gandrud, C., Russell, K. & Yetman, C. J. networkD3: D3 JavaScript network graphs from R. R package version 0.4; https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=networkD3 (2017)

  71. Chang, W. webshot: Take screenshots of web pages. R package version 0.5.4; https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=webshot (2019).

Download references

Acknowledgements

The project that gave rise to these results received the support of a fellowship from the ‘la Caixa’ Foundation (ID 100010434). The fellowship code is ‘LCF/BQ/DI20/11780006’ (S.G.). This research is further supported by María de Maeztu excellence accreditation 2018–2022 (ref. MDM-2017-0714), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/; and by the Basque Government through the BERC 2022–2025 programme (S.G., M.O. and U.P.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Leioa, Spain

    Sean Goodwin, Marta Olazabal & Unai Pascual

  2. Department of Biology and Geology, The Andalusian Centre for the Evaluation and Monitoring of Global Change (CAESCG), University of Almería, Almería, Spain

    Sean Goodwin & Antonio J. Castro

  3. IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain

    Marta Olazabal & Unai Pascual

  4. Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Unai Pascual

Authors
  1. Sean Goodwin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Marta Olazabal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Antonio J. Castro
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Unai Pascual
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

S.G., M.O., A.J.C. and U.P. were involved in conceptualization, methodology and formal analysis. S.G. and M.O. conducted the investigation. S.G. obtained resources (data collection), undertook data curation and was responsible for visualization and software. S.G. and U.P. obtained funding. S.G. wrote the original draft and S.G., M.O., A.J.C. and U.P. were involved in reviewing and editing the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sean Goodwin.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Sustainability thanks Harriet Bulkeley, Janina Käyhkö and Eliakira Nassary for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Further discussion of data collection and analysis including a detailed description of data points used, with Supplementary Tables 1 and 2, Figs. 1 and 2 and references.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Data

Data coding framework and raw description data (used for Fig. 2).

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Goodwin, S., Olazabal, M., Castro, A.J. et al. Global mapping of urban nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation. Nat Sustain 6, 458–469 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01036-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01036-x

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing