Paying for nature‐based solutions: A review of funding and financing mechanisms for ecosystem services and their impacts on social equity

Abstract

Funding and financing challenges remain a persistent barrier to implementing nature‐based solutions that enhance ecosystem services, facilitate adaptation to climate change, and combat environmental stressors in cities. In the absence of adequate public financial resources, private funds are often expected to fill the gap. But market‐driven, nature‐based solutions can contribute to an inequitable distribution of urban ecosystem services by focusing on net benefits provided by nature. To help foster sustainable development and ensure that nature‐based solutions reach diverse and historically marginalized populations and communities, this scoping review explores the ecosystem services provided by nature‐based solutions and the payment mechanisms that produce and maintain them, focusing on literature on the United States. Findings suggest that the net benefits provided by nature‐based solutions and the available payment mechanisms vary based on the solution utilized (e.g., urban trees, parks, community gardens). Further, the distribution of benefits from nature‐based solutions is influenced by local historical, cultural, political, economic, and environmental contexts, the voices included in decision‐making, and the payment mechanisms used. Inspired by social equity principles, we present a framework for ecosystem service provision that is sensitive to market‐driven funding, financing, and partnerships. Practitioners can use this framework to assess whether payment schemes work in tandem with place (the local context) and process (governance and planning approaches) to ameliorate or exacerbate disparities in nature‐based solutions and the benefits they provide to people.

Guidelines to reduce the effects of urban heat in a changing climate: Green infrastructures and design measures

“…Big‐size parks have mature and tall trees, a water body (Figure 6), which also acts as a heat sink and improves thermal comfort around it (Imam & Banerjee, 2017), and different zones with varied landscaping elements, like vegetation types. As for small green spaces, they have a low tree and vegetation diversity, and are delimited (Aram et al, 2019; Thompson et al, 2023). The cooling effect of large parks with more than 10 ha can represent a 1–2°C temperature reduction over 350 m from the park boundary (Aram et al, 2019).…”

Promising Nature-Based Solutions to Support Climate Adaptation of Arizona’s Local Food Entrepreneurs and Optimize One Health

“…They lack a comprehensive understanding of the payment options available to them to incentivize NbS. Payment is defined as the funding, financing, and/or partnership mechanisms utilized in the implementation and management of NbS [78]. More specifically, funding mechanisms include grants and donations provided by federal, state, and philanthropic sources to support a one-time cost for specific NbS projects.…”

Managing Urban Green Areas: The Benefits of Collaborative Governance for Green Spaces

“…Collaborations and different forms of governance offer key opportunities to deliver projects aiming to create, protect and restore urban green areas while strengthening social justice and social inclusion outcomes [24]. In fact, collaborative governance and crosssectoral collaborations are expected to lead to higher-quality urban NBSs that would otherwise deteriorate or not be created in the first place, based on shared responsibilities between public and private actors that might also enhance the opportunities to access innovative financing forms [24][25][26]. Additionally, collaborative forms of governance characterised by multi-stakeholder decision-making processes are capable of reducing the risk of an unequal distribution of benefits among citizens as they are based on analyses of proximity and opportunities to access green areas and connected ecosystem services [24].…”

“…Furthermore, what remains challenging, especially when using partial or full public funds, is the assessment of the equity of projects promoting the creation, protection and restoration of urban green areas, understanding who the beneficiaries of the interventions are and their degree of involvement in the process. For this, a model based on payment mean, context and process has been identified for the evaluation of the equitable nature of urban NBS projects [26]. Although this model focused mainly on the creation of ecosystem services rather than on their management, the present article aims to explore the relationship between contextual factors, ecosystem services and management models to better understand how and for whom social outcomes are generated and redistributed over time.…”