Nature-based solutions in hiding: goslings and greening in the still-industrial city

Abstract

Nature-based solutions (NBS) include a wide range of ecosystem restoration and green infrastructure projects that are meant to also create economic and social benefits. In practice, NBS are increasingly tied to an outward-looking, post-industrial urban growth agenda. This focus ignores interventions which are less visible, smaller scale, and serve a working-class population in still-industrial areas of the city. In this short piece, we consider various small-scale interventions undertaken by the Newtown Creek Alliance to accomplish demonstrable environmental improvements along the heavily polluted industrial waterway of Newtown Creek in New York City. Though largely invisible within the larger conversation on NBS and urban development, these interventions have the potential for substantive environmental improvement that benefits existing long-term residents and users rather than being a tool to attract new residents and luxury development. We offer this example as an attempt to diversify the "best practice" case studies that will inform future NBS growth.

Unearthing time-honored examples of nature-based solutions

“…contemporary socio-ecological practitioners and socioecological scholar-practitioners in NBS practice and research. This task necessarily requires the prudent use of a holistic socio-ecological approach, as advocated by many authors (e.g., Bayulken et al 2021;Curran and Hamilton 2020;Janzen and Fischborn 2016;Kotsila et al 2021;La Rosa and Pappalardo 2020;Shi 2020), through which societal issues pertaining to equity and justice are taken into due consideration in NBS practice and research; (3) To showcase concrete instances in which a time-honored NBS example was made useful to, and actually used by, real-world practitioners in their socio-ecological practice of building nature-inspired GIs; (4) To develop articles that present these findings precisely "in small words" (Xiang 2020b) and share through Socio-Ecological Practice Research (SEPR), the home journal of Ecopracticology-the study of socioecological practice (Xiang 2019a, p.12), so that they are permanently archived in what we hope to build the international depository of time-honored NBS examples.…”

Spotlight on social equity, finance and scale: Promises and pitfalls of nature-based solutions

“…The material implication of this discourse is that a market-driven governance of NbS tends to prioritize projects that serve high income groups (Toxopeus et al 2020). For example, more vulnerable segments of populations may be displaced when urban greening projects leads to higher housing rents in the area (Curran and Hamilton 2020;Millington 2015). More vulnerable areas, which are often those most in need of safe green spaces, might not be as attractive for green infrastructure investmentsparticularly from the private sector -as the better-off or more central areas of the city.…”

Relación entre tipologías y percepciones de espacios verdes públicos del frente fluvial del río Limay (Área Metropolitana de Neuquén, Argentina)

“…Debido al calentamiento global se proyecta el incremento en la duración, magnitud y frecuencia de riesgos climáticos, tales como sequías, olas de calor, temperaturas extremas, inundaciones, erosión costera, entre otros (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2021). Las SbN agrupan una multiplicidad de proyectos de Infraestructuras Verdes y Azules diseñados para abordar diversos desafíos ambientales y proporcionar simultáneamente resiliencia urbana ante riesgos ambientales, así como beneficios sociales, económicos y ecológicos a través del aprovechamiento de sus servicios ecosistémicos (Curran y Hamilton, 2020;Frantzeskaki, 2019;Sahani et al, 2019). En particular, la literatura internacional ha asociado diversos servicios ecosistémicos de los frentes marítimo-fluviales con la adaptación de las ciudades al cambio climático.…”