Nature-Based Solutions

Urban Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

From 2012 to 2015, the Urban Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (URBES) project generated a variety of science-based contributions to improving the quality and sustainability of life in cities. It generated data on biodiversity and ecosystem services through case studies in Berlin, Stockholm, Rotterdam, Salzburg, Helsinki, and New York. Funded by BiodivERsA through DIVERSITAS with €1 Million over three years, the URBES team represented 11 leading research institutions in Europe and the United States. The project gave rise to ongoing collaborations between USL and colleagues at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions, and Humboldt University in Berlin.

For more information on URBES, see Ambio, Ecosystem Services, Ecological Indicators, and the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

Distributional Justice in NYC

USL Fellow Pablo Herreros Cantis is working on projects related to distributional justice and green infrastructure in NYC. In Cantis’ study, supply and demand of ecosystem services for climate change adaptation were mapped and overlapped to classify NYC’s geography according to their degree of supply-demand mismatch. The socioeconomic nature of areas with different mismatch was then compared, to generate insights on the differences between communities with different access to urban ecosystem services provided by green infrastructure. Significant differences were found in the average income and presence of ethnic and racial minorities between areas with different degrees of supply-demand mismatch.

NATURA

The USL is co-leading the Nature-based Solutions for Urban Resilience in the Anthropocene (NATURA) project, which links 26 networks in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, North and Latin America, and globally to enhance connectivity among the world's scholars and practitioners and improve the prospects for global urban sustainability. NATURA exchanges knowledge, shares data, and enhances communication among research disciplines and across the research-practice divide to advance urban resilience in face of growing threats of extreme weather events. As an important part of knowledge sharing, researchers and practitioners will work together on applications of nature-based solutions (NBS) in a wide range of social, ecological, and technological contexts addressing five gaps:

• Synergistic benefits of bundles of NBS for urban resilience

• Role of social-cultural (S) context in NBS outcomes

• Role of ecological-biophysical (E) context in NBS outcomes

• Role of technological-infrastructural (T) context in NBS outcomes

• Role of SET interactions in NBS outcomes

Green Roof Monitoring

The Urban Systems Lab is using real-time sensors to evaluate the performance of green roofs. To learn more about this work visit: https://www.greenroofsnyc.com/

Greening From the Rooftops: Calculating NYC's Green Roof Potential

Greening From the Rooftops is an interactive mapping tool and project developed by USL Masters Student Nour Zein. The tool was developed to transform the scientific literature on green roofs into a tool that the average person and decision maker can use. It visualizes and maps potential rooftops for implementing green roofs, and calculates the environmental benefits the potential green roof would bring if installed. Click here to visit the site.