Reviewing Ecosystem Services in Urban Climate Adaptation Plans

This case explores the Methow Beaver Project (MBP), an ambitious experiment to restore beaver (Castor canadensis) to a high mountain watershed in Washington State, USA. The Pacific Northwest is already experiencing weather regimes consistent with longer term climate projections, which predict longer and drier summers and stronger and wetter winter storms. Ironically, this combination makes imperative more water storage in one of the most heavily dammed regions in the nation. Although the positive role that beaver can play in watershed enhancement has been well known for decades, no project has previously attempted to re-introduce beaver on a watershed scale with a rigorous monitoring protocol designed to document improved water storage and temperature conditions needed for human uses and aquatic species. While the MBP has demonstrated that beaver can be re-introduced on a watershed scale, it has been much more difficult to scientifically demonstrate positive changes in water retention and stream temperature, given hydrologic complexity, unprecedented fire and floods, and the fact that beaver are highly mobile. This case study can help environmental studies students and natural resource policy professionals think about the broader challenges of diffuse, ecosystem services approaches to climate adaptation. Beaver-produced watershed improvements will remain difficult to quantify and verify, and thus will likely remain less attractive to water planners than conventional storage dams. But as climate conditions put additional pressure on such infrastructure, it is worth considering how beaver might be employed to augment watershed storage capacity, even if this capacity is likely to remain at least in part inscrutable.

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Natural Assurance Schemes Canvas: A Framework to Develop Business Models for Nature-Based Solutions Aimed at Disaster Risk Reduction

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13031291 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 1291

Author(s):

Beatriz Mayor ◽

Pedro Zorrilla-Miras ◽

Philippe Le Coent ◽

Thomas Biffin ◽

Kieran Dartée ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Risk Reduction ◽

Case Studies ◽

Disaster Risk Reduction ◽

Business Models ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Disaster Risk ◽

Critical Information ◽

Business Cases ◽

Floods And Droughts

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are increasingly being promoted because they can solve different pursued aims together with providing an additional array of multiple ecosystem services or co-benefits. Nevertheless, their implementation is still being curbed by several barriers, for example, a lack of examples, a lack of finance, and a lack of business cases. Therefore, there is an urgent need to facilitate the construction of business models and business cases that identify the elements required to capture value. These are necessary to catalyze investments for the implementation of NBS. This article presents a tool called a Natural Assurance Schemes (NAS) canvas and explains how it can be applied to identify business models for NBS strategies providing climate adaptation services, showing an eye-shot summary of critical information to attract funding. The framework is applied in three case studies covering different contexts, scales, and climate-related risks (floods and droughts). Finally, a reflective analysis is done, comparing the tool with other similar approaches while highlighting the differential characteristics that define the usefulness, replicability, and flexibility of the tool for the target users, namely policymakers, developers, scientists, or entrepreneurs aiming to promote and implement NAS and NBS projects.

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Transnational Support for Urban Climate Adaptation: Emerging Forms of Agency and Dependency

Global Environmental Politics ◽

10.1162/glep_a_00467 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 25-46 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Eric K. Chu

Keyword(s):

Climate Adaptation ◽

Urban Climate ◽

Institutional Culture ◽

External Support ◽

Political Agency ◽

Global Marketplace ◽

Spatial Strategies ◽

Transnational Actors ◽

Economic Constraints ◽

Political Economic

Transnational actors are critical for financing programs and generating awareness around climate change adaptation in cities. However, it is unclear whether transnational support actually enables more authority over adaptation actions and whether outcomes address wide-ranging development needs. In this article, I compare experiences from three cities in India—Surat, Indore, and Bhubaneswar—and link local political agency over adaptation with their supporting transnational funders. I find that adaptation governance involves powers of agency over directing bureaucratic practices, public finance, spatial strategies, and institutional culture. A city’s ability to exert these powers then yields different patterns of adaptation. However, political agency is circumscribed by a combination of historical political economic constraints and emerging transnational resources that promote specific forms of political meaning and procedures. The presence of external support therefore paradoxically constrains the governance autonomy of cities. This opens up new opportunities for development dependency—that is, ones that mirror neoliberal critiques of foreign aid—within the global marketplace for climate finance.

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Emerging Solutions to Return Nature to the Urban Ocean

Annual Review of Marine Science ◽

10.1146/annurev-marine-032020-020015 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 445-477 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Laura Airoldi ◽

Michael W. Beck ◽

Louise B. Firth ◽

Ana B. Bugnot ◽

Peter D. Steinberg ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Environmental Benefits ◽

Evidence Based ◽

Clean Water ◽

Economic Instruments ◽

New Approaches ◽

Sustainable Future ◽

Exclusive Economic Zones ◽

Economic Zones

Urban and periurban ocean developments impact 1.5% of the global exclusive economic zones, and the demand for ocean space and resources is increasing. As we strive for a more sustainable future, it is imperative that we better design, manage, and conserve urban ocean spaces for both humans and nature. We identify three key objectives for more sustainable urban oceans: reduction of urban pressures, protection and restoration of ocean ecosystems, and support of critical ecosystem services. We describe an array of emerging evidence-based approaches, including greening grayinfrastructure, restoring habitats, and developing biotechnologies. We then explore new economic instruments and incentives for supporting these new approaches and evaluate their feasibility in delivering these objectives. Several of these tools have the potential to help bring nature back to the urban ocean while also addressing some of the critical needs of urban societies, such as climate adaptation, seafood production, clean water, and recreation, providing both human and environmental benefits in some of our most impacted ocean spaces.

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The motley drivers of heat and cold exposure in 21st century US cities

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.2005492117 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 117 (35) ◽

pp. 21108-21117 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ashley Mark Broadbent ◽

Eric Scott Krayenhoff ◽

Matei Georgescu

Keyword(s):

Los Angeles ◽

21St Century ◽

Cold Exposure ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Urban Climate ◽

Heat Exposure ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

Adaptation Measures ◽

Relative Significance ◽

Metropolitan Regions

We use a suite of decadal-length regional climate simulations to quantify potential changes in population-weighted heat and cold exposure in 47 US metropolitan regions during the 21st century. Our results show that population-weighted exposure to locally defined extreme heat (i.e., “population heat exposure”) would increase by a factor of 12.7–29.5 under a high-intensity greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and urban development pathway. Additionally, end-of-century population cold exposure is projected to rise by a factor of 1.3–2.2, relative to start-of-century population cold exposure. We identify specific metropolitan regions in which population heat exposure would increase most markedly and characterize the relative significance of various drivers responsible for this increase. The largest absolute changes in population heat exposure during the 21st century are projected to occur in major US metropolitan regions like New York City (NY), Los Angeles (CA), Atlanta (GA), and Washington DC. The largest relative changes in population heat exposure (i.e., changes relative to start-of-century) are projected to occur in rapidly growing cities across the US Sunbelt, for example Orlando (FL), Austin (TX), Miami (FL), and Atlanta. The surge in population heat exposure across the Sunbelt is driven by concurrent GHG-induced warming and population growth which, in tandem, could strongly compound population heat exposure. Our simulations provide initial guidance to inform the prioritization of urban climate adaptation measures and policy.

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Awareness of urban climate adaptation strategies –an international overview

Urban Climate ◽

10.1016/j.uclim.2020.100705 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 34 ◽

pp. 100705 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sanda Lenzholzer ◽

Gerrit-Jan Carsjens ◽

Robert D. Brown ◽

Silvia Tavares ◽

Jennifer Vanos ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Adaptation ◽

Urban Climate ◽

Adaptation Strategies

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An assessment of the impact of climate adaptation measures to reduce flood risk on ecosystem services

Landscape Ecology ◽

10.1007/s10980-012-9715-6 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 27 (4) ◽

pp. 473-486 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Peter H. Verburg ◽

Eric Koomen ◽

Maarten Hilferink ◽

Marta Pérez-Soba ◽

Jan Peter Lesschen

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Adaptation Measures ◽

The Impact

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The political economy of urban climate adaptation and development planning in Surat, India

Environment and Planning C Government and Policy ◽

10.1177/0263774x15614174 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 34 (2) ◽

pp. 281-298 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

Eric Chu

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Urban Climate ◽

Development Planning ◽

The Political

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An Oceania Urban Design Agenda Linking Ecosystem Services, Nature-Based Solutions, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Wellbeing

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su132212660 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (22) ◽

pp. 12660

Author(s):

Gabriel Luke Kiddle ◽

Maibritt Pedersen Zari ◽

Paul Blaschke ◽

Victoria Chanse ◽

Rebecca Kiddle

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Urban Design ◽

Traditional Ecological Knowledge ◽

Biological Diversity ◽

Marine Ecosystem ◽

Urban Climate ◽

Ecological Knowledge ◽

Potential Contribution ◽

Human Wellbeing

Many coastal peri-urban and urban populations in Oceania are heavily reliant on terrestrial and marine ecosystem services for subsistence and wellbeing. However, climate change and urbanisation have put significant pressure on ecosystems and compelled nations and territories in Oceania to urgently adapt. This article, with a focus on Pacific Island Oceania but some insight from Aotearoa New Zealand, reviews key literature focused on ecosystem health and human health and wellbeing in Oceania and the important potential contribution of nature-based solutions to limiting the negative impacts of climate change and urbanisation. The inextricable link between human wellbeing and provision of ecosystem services is well established. However, given the uniqueness of Oceania, rich in cultural and biological diversity and traditional ecological knowledge, these links require further examination leading potentially to a new conceptualisation of wellbeing frameworks in relation to human/nature relationships. Rapidly urbanising Oceania has a growing body of rural, peri-urban and urban nature-based solutions experience to draw from. However, important gaps in knowledge and practice remain. Pertinently, there is a need, potential—and therefore opportunity—to define an urban design agenda positioned within an urban ecosystem services framework, focused on human wellbeing and informed by traditional ecological knowledge, determined by and relevant for those living in the islands of Oceania as a means to work towards effective urban climate change adaptation.

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Ecological and economic transformations of natural management systems of agrarian type (based on materials from the South of Russia)

E3S Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/e3sconf/202128508003 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 285 ◽

pp. 08003

Author(s):

Galina Karpova ◽

Natalya Medyanik

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Agricultural Practices ◽

Management Systems ◽

The South ◽

Agrarian Economy ◽

Economic Transformations ◽

Natural Landscapes

The necessity of ecological and economic transformations of natural management systems of the agrarian type is shown, considering dominant natural landscapes, sectoral specifics of the economy and settlement. Spatial and sectoral priorities and measures for greening of the development of natural management systems of the agrarian type, associated with climate adaptation of traditional agricultural sectors, ecosystem services, ethnically marked agricultural practices, as well as ecosystem-adaptive transformation of the agrarian economy, taking into account the specifics of steppe, mountain, rural natural management localities are substantiated.

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