Resources to advance your knowledge on NBS in urban planning
Explore resources and material that can help further your knowledge on nature-based solutions (NBS), what role co-creation and urban living labs play in their development, and how cities and municipalities can support successful development and uptake of them. These resources focus on getting to know NBS and their general role, as well as city-level strategic planning principles and instruments.
A summary of key resources for creating a supportive environment for NBS on city level can be downloaded here.
Discover NBS
Nature-based solutions (NBS) are inspired and supported by nature, and they simultaneously provide social, environmental and economic benefits and aid in building urban resilience. Discover our NBS Technical Handbook to learn about different types of nature-based solutions and to take part of some inspiration and easily-digestible information directed towards practitioners. You can also learn about the NBS demonstration projects in our front-runner cities, and what place nature-based solutions may have in the cities of tomorrow.
Co-creation & living labs
The Urban Living Lab is an emerging concept referring to a Living Lab in an urban environment. It is a collaborative ecosystem allowing for the co-creation of sustainable, future proof innovations that improve life in a city and boost its economy. Take a look at our resources to learn how to develop an Urban Living Lab in your city and what barriers you may face along the way, as well as how to co-create and involve stakeholders in the different phases of an innovation process.
Support NBS on city level
Cities can be major enablers and set the right scene to support NBS development. To better do this, municipal strategies need to put more emphasis on climate adaptation and resilience. See how our cities have assessed disaster resilience or used an NBS roadmapping process for urban strategy development. Learn more on the role of municipal governance in supporting NBS or alternative financing strategies which can lead to more widespread uptake. Lastly, different ICT tools for city level engagement and monitoring are presented.
Putting it into practice: resources to advance a specific NBS project
Adaptive management is an iterative process for managing the whole lifecycle of a nature-based solutions project. The process of co-creating, implementing, monitoring and co-managing NBS is cyclical, thus requiring continuous evaluation and feedback at every stage in the process and identifying needed adjustments for reaching the targets and objectives. The adaptive management cycle, or the PLAN-DO-CHECK-ACT cycle, aims to learn from the past actions to improve or adjust next steps and future planning of similar projects. The UNaLab project's resources, ranging from best practices and lessons learnt to tools and handbooks, have been placed in the adaptive management cycle in order to highlight in which phase of the NBS implementation process the different resources could be used.
The Adaptive Management Cycle
PLAN
The PLAN phase is about making problems visible. During the PLAN phase, local urban living labs consisting of key stakeholder groups are established and challenges are co-identified in a series of urban living lab workshops along with overall goals and specific objectives. Further, suitable nature-based solutions are co-identified in a series of co-creation workshops.
DO
The DO phase is about applying countermeasures. Based on the challenges identified during the PLAN phase, a set of representative key performance indicators are adopted in the DO phase to track the progress towards the goals. During this phase, nature-based solutions are implemented and the monitoring strategy is defined.
CHECK
The CHECK phase is about comparing the achieved results to the set goals. During the CHECK phase, the monitoring activities defined during the DO phase are implemented and the quality of data is reviewed.
ACT/ADJUST
The ACT/ADJUST phase is about continuously improving and reviewing. During the ACT/ADJUST phase, the impacts of nature-based solutions interventions are quantified against the baseline and the initial objectives. This phase contributes to roadmapping, replication and upscaling activities, and identifying necessary measures to act upon the outcomes.
Interested in learning about the UNaLab project?
The Horizon 2020 UNaLab project has developed the resources, tools and materials presented on this website. Learn more about the project and its partners.