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A new global study finds cities are not taking advantage of the full potential of nature-based solutions

Posted on March 31, 2023April 19, 2023 by BP

New research from a team of researchers between the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Ikerbasque, and the University of Almería explains how current NbS applied globally are addressing the CBS nexus, and whether (and how) they are promoting real long-term change when they are used to help cities adapt to climate change.

Nature-based solutions (NbS) have been identified as a critical strategy for achieving the ambitious global goals of mitigating and adapting to climate change and halting and reversing biodiversity loss, all while addressing the social challenges that each of these issues create and exacerbate. Supporters of NbS highlight their strength in addressing each of these areas because of their cascading benefits across human well-being and ecosystem health. This is made explicit by a recent joint publication by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in what they call the “climate-biodiversity-society” (or, CBS) nexus.

New research from a team of researchers between the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Ikerbasque, and the University of Almería, led by La Caixa INPhINIT fellow and doctoral researcher Sean Goodwin and now published in Nature Sustainability, explains how current NbS applied globally are addressing the CBS nexus, and whether (and how) they are promoting real long-term change when they are used to help cities adapt to climate change (currently a blind-spot in scientific understanding). Several key take-away messages emerge that are significant both for science and policy-makers.

The first is that projects using NbS need to pay more attention to how they address context-specific CBS challenges.

For example, only 2% of NbS studied took into account how future climate change impacts would affect the NbS themselves, as Marta Olazabal explains: “As solutions based on natural processes, the specific plant species used within the context of NbS are also as vulnerable to climate change as people. If they are to provide benefits into the future, NbS themselves need to be designed to be resilient to changing climate conditions. For example, species need to be resilient to high temperatures or drier conditions in certain locations.”

Vulnerability to climate change can and should be reduced in multiple and complementary  ways through NbS. In this study, however, the authors found that current NbS are mainly designed to reduce exposure and do not work from other angles of climate vulnerability.  For example, NbS more often attempt to reduce exposure to climate hazards by diverting heavy rainfall so that flooding is avoided (e.g. floodable parks). Moving forward, NbS need to address the needs of urban dwellers on how to enact their own adaptation strategies in their communities and homes (e.g., capturing water to use it when there is scarcity) and reduce the severity of the impact of hazards overall (e.g., by helping cool down houses and apartment blocks).

The findings of this study point out that people need to be more at the centre of NbS design. In that regard, the researchers found that consideration of social issues is uneven among NbS projects analysed. While almost all NbS considered some form of social justice in how they were designed and implemented, this mostly related to superficial procedures of stakeholder consultation. Only 28% of projects evidenced deeper engagement with how to consider diverse (and marginalised) values in NbS implementation, and only 20% made explicit consideration of ensuring benefits (and burdens) arising from NbS were distributed in a just manner. In terms of project governance, around 80% of all projects were funded and implemented by public actors, mostly municipal governments, further highlighting a vulnerability in the longevity of NbS as they are subject to the shifting priorities and budgeting of city governments.

Finally, another thing that the authors studied was the capacity of NbS of creating real long-term change (also called “transformative change”) in these cities. They studied the impact of NbS projects on the ecological system, on society and on the infrastructure of the city. They found that less than 15% of the projects evidence transformative capacity on either of these dimensions. The authors attribute these trends to “…the lack of social engagement beyond superficial public consultation (social change), the piecemeal approach to improving conditions for urban biodiversity (ecological change) or due to the project’s limited connection to city-wide urban planning rules and norms (technical change)”. These trends differed regionally, as NbS in Latin American and African cities were leading the way in terms of ecological and social transformation.  

The second recommendation then relates to the kinds of information that can be used to do a systematic study of this magnitude. The information that formed the basis for this analysis came from various online databases containing project information on NbS from all over the world. Sean Goodwin highlights: “In our work, it was important to include information from a variety of viewpoints globally, not just the Global North, and we saw these databases as our best chance to capture a higher diversity of regional information than had previously been done.” However, it has still been the case that 63% of the projects from these databases were from Europe alone, and in the future, more support needs to be given to make the on-the-ground efforts of people implementing NbS in a diversity of regions visible. These include efforts from projects like the Equator Initiative and PANORAMA, two databases used as sources for information in the study that aim to do just that. This is critical in efforts to synthesise learnings from NbS globally to further improve and grow the approach, as was the goal of the researchers, as otherwise critical contextual information, is missed that accounts for a diversity of local conditions and experiences.

Una investigación a nivel global muestra que las ciudades no están aprovechando todo el potencial que ofrecen las soluciones basadas en la naturaleza

Una nueva investigación de un equipo de investigadores entre el Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Ikerbasque, y la Universidad de Almería explica cómo las NbS actuales aplicadas globalmente están abordando el nexo CBS, y si (y cómo) están promoviendo un cambio real a largo plazo cuando se utilizan para ayudar a las ciudades a adaptarse al cambio climático.

Las soluciones basadas en la naturaleza (SbN) han sido identificadas como una estrategia crítica para alcanzar los ambiciosos objetivos globales de mitigar y adaptarse al cambio climático, así como de detener y revertir la pérdida de biodiversidad. Sus partidarios destacan la capacidad de las SbN de influir en cada una de estas áreas generando beneficios en cascada tanto en el bienestar humano como en la salud del ecosistema. Esta idea de nexo entre “clima-biodiversidad-sociedad” (CBS) se recoge en el informe conjunto publicado recientemente del Panel Intergubernamental sobre el Cambio Climático (IPCC) y el Panel Intergubernamental sobre Biodiversidad y Servicios de los Ecosistemas (IPBES).

Una investigación del Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Ikerbasque y la Universidad de Almería, liderada por el investigador de BC3 Sean Goodwin y publicada en Nature Sustainability, muestra cómo la aplicación de las SbN a nivel mundial influye directamente en el nexo entre “clima-biodiversidad-sociedad” y cómo están promoviendo un cambio real a largo plazo cuando se utilizan para ayudar a las ciudades a adaptarse al cambio climático.

La primera conclusión de este estudio es que los proyectos que utilizan SbN deben prestar más atención a cómo abordar los desafíos de “clima-biodiversidad-sociedad” específicos de cada contexto. El estudio muestra que solo el 2% de las SbN estudiadas tuvo en cuenta la forma en que los futuros impactos del cambio climático afectarán a las propias SbN. Tal y como explica la investigadora Ikerbasque en el BC3, Marta Olazabal: “Al tratarse de soluciones basadas en procesos naturales, el tipo de plantas utilizadas en el contexto de las SbN son tan vulnerables al cambio climático como las personas. Por ello y para que den beneficios en el futuro, las SbN deben diseñarse para que sean resistentes a las condiciones climáticas cambiantes. Por ejemplo, las especies deben ser resistentes a las altas temperaturas o a condiciones más secas en ciertos lugares”.

La vulnerabilidad al cambio climático puede y debe reducirse de formas múltiples y complementarias a través de SbN. En este estudio, sin embargo, los autores/a encontraron que las SbN actuales están diseñadas principalmente para reducir la exposición y no funcionan desde otros ángulos de vulnerabilidad climática. Por ejemplo, en la mayoría de los casos las SbN intentan reducir la exposición a los peligros climáticos desviando las fuertes lluvias para evitar inundaciones (por ejemplo, parques inundables). En el futuro, las SbN deben abordar las necesidades de los habitantes urbanos para desarrollar sus propias estrategias de adaptación en sus hogares y ciudades (p. ej., almacenar agua para usarla cuando hay escasez) o intentar reducir el impactos de los riesgos (p. ej., ayudando a enfriar casas y bloques de apartamentos).

Los hallazgos de este estudio señalan que las personas deben estar en el centro del diseño de NbS. En ese sentido, los autores/a de este estudio han concluido que la consideración de los problemas sociales es desigual entre los proyectos de SbN analizados, ya que, si bien la mayoría de las NbS consideran alguna forma de justicia social en su diseño, en la mayoría de los casos se trata de consultas realizadas a los grupos de interés de forma superficial. Solo el 28 % de los proyectos mostró un compromiso real con valores diversos (y marginados) en la implementación de las SbN, y solo el 20 % hizo una consideración explícita de garantizar que los beneficios (y las cargas) derivados de las SbN se distribuyeran de manera justa. En términos de gobernanza de proyectos, alrededor del 80 % de todos los proyectos fueron financiados e implementados por entes públicos, en su mayoría gobiernos municipales, lo que destaca aún más la vulnerabilidad en el largo plazo de las SbN, al estar sujetas a las prioridades y presupuestos cambiantes de los gobiernos.

Otro aspecto que se ha analizado en este estudio ha sido la capacidad de NbS de crear un cambio real o transformador a largo plazo en estas ciudades. Para ello, han analizado el impacto de los proyectos SbN en el sistema ecológico, en la sociedad y en la infraestructura de la ciudad y han concluido que menos del 15% de los proyectos muestran capacidad transformadora en cualquiera de estas dimensiones. Los autores atribuyen estas tendencias a la falta de compromiso social (más allá de las consultas públicas realizadas de forma superficial), al enfoque gradual para mejorar las condiciones de la biodiversidad urbana o debido a la conexión limitada del proyecto con la planificación urbana de toda la ciudad”. Es de mencionar que estas tendencias difieren regionalmente, ya que las SbN en ciudades de América Latina y África lideran el camino en términos de transformación ecológica y social.

La segunda recomendación se relaciona con los tipos de información que se pueden usar para hacer un estudio sistemático de esta magnitud. La información que sirvió de base para este análisis provino de varias bases de datos que contienen información sobre proyectos de SbN de todo el mundo. En palabras del investigador y autor líder del estudio Sean Goodwin: “En nuestro trabajo, era importante incluir información desde una variedad de puntos de vista a nivel mundial, no solo del Norte Global, por eso estas bases de datos han sido nuestra mejor oportunidad para capturar una mayor diversidad de información regional de lo que se había hecho anteriormente”. Sin embargo, es de señalar que el 63 % de los proyectos de estas bases de datos proceden solo de Europa y tal y como afirman los autores/a de este estudio es importante incluir información que recoja los diferentes puntos de vista a nivel mundial. Por ello, en el futuro, se necesita más apoyo para que no se pierda información contextual crítica que muestre una diversidad de condiciones y experiencias locales.

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