Understanding the Economic Value of Nature Base Solutions (NBS) towards Sustainable Built Environments
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2020) | Viewed by 28061
Special Issue Editors
2. Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: public–private partnerships; construction management; project appraisal; green infrastructure
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: green infrastructure; green roofs; green walls; ecosystem services; energy and water efficiency; rainwater harvesting; economic evaluation of green infrastructure; payback period
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The growth of cities is defying urban developers and decision makers, and changes in the future climate conditions are making cities more vulnerable. Resilient adaptive measures include nature-based solutions (NBS) that provide additional ecosystem services when implemented at a large scale. There are several opportunities for ecosystem and urban regeneration with NBS, such as pollution reduction, climate regulation, water flow and erosion regulation, flood prevention and resilience to other natural hazards, water purification and treatment, coastal and wildlife protection, soundscape regulation, biodiversity conservation and habitat creation, and improvement of health and quality of life. In a complementary way, NBS can provide economic development and provision of recreational spaces for social activities.
NBS are developed upon the understanding of nature and natural processes, fostering the preservation of ecosystems integrity, improvement of their sustainable management, and creation of new ecosystems. The EU Research and Innovation policy agenda on NBS and Re-Naturing Cities identified four main goals that can be addressed by NBS: (i) enhance sustainable cities, (ii) restore degraded systems, (iii) develop adaptation and mitigation to climate change, and (iv) improve risk management and resilience.
Practitioners and academics are still struggling to fully grasp the potential long-term impacts of such solutions, and there is a growing wave of research trying to determine the local and global impacts, and, also, the attached costs.
Monetizing these impacts is fundamental to start to understand the economic value of these solutions, the potential interest for private and public investors, and the need for incentives to facilitate their adoption at the urban scale.
This Special Issue should cover the following items:
- Innovative NBS
- Calculation of direct and indirect benefits
- Long-term impacts
- Life cycle costing of NBS
- Innovation in valuation techniques (CBA)
- Incentives and financing of NBS
Dr. Carlos Oliveira Cruz
Dr. Cristina Matos Silva
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- nature-based solutions
- cost-benefit analysis
- green infrastructure
- life cycle cost
- economic evaluation
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