The climate-biodiversity-health nexus: a framework for integrated community sustainability planning in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Integrated approaches to planning and policy are important for making progress toward sustainability. A variety of frameworks have been developed for facilitating such approaches to planning and policy, such as the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus. However, the WEF nexus has been criticized for a lack of clarity in how to apply the framework, whereas a goals-oriented framework potentially could be more easily applied and operationalized. This paper proposes such a framework, referred to here as the climate-biodiversity-health (CBH) nexus. The paper details the features of the CBH nexus framework, the interactions among its domains, and its potential applications. The CBH nexus consists of three domains (i.e., climate action, biodiversity conservation, and community health) and six subdomains (i.e., climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, habitat protection and regeneration, wildlife health and welfare, physical health, and mental health). The framework can be applied in practice to develop checklists/toolkits for guiding new development and as a basis for creating community indicator systems. It can also be applied in research to identify gaps in planning and policy documents and as a lens for participatory modeling exercises. Continued experimentation with, and improvement of, the CBH framework will reveal its most useful applications, thereby opening new opportunities for communities to effectively develop and implement integrated sustainability plans and policies.

Participatory System Mapping for Food Systems: Lessons Learned from a Case Study of Comox Valley, Canada

“…This study is part of an applied research effort: the Climate-Biodiversity-Health Nexus project [42]. The project aims to enhance the integration of community planning by creating an experimental framework focused on three critical areas for sustainable development: climate change, biodiversity conservation, and human health [43]. The framework, referred to as the climate-biodiversity-health (CBH) nexus, can be applied to various community planning domains to examine how strategies, policies, and actions either align or conflict with objectives and considerations in these sustainable development areas.…”

Understanding the role of biodiversity in the climate, food, water, energy, transport and health nexus in Europe

“…Biodiversity supports and sustains life on Earth and underpins the functioning of ecosystems and the diverse benefits that nature provides to people (Brauman et al, 2020;Cardinale et al, 2012;IPBES, 2019). It plays a crucial role in the achievement of sustainability outcomes related to food and water security, health and wellbeing, and climate change mitigation and adaptation, among others (Moreno Vargas et al, 2023;Newell, 2023;Ortiz et al, 2021;Sietz & Neudert, 2022;Stoy et al, 2018). Ranging in organismal levels from genes to species and ecosystems, biodiversity contributes directly or indirectly to the achievement of all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), encompassing a broad range of ecological and societal wellbeing ambitions set to be achieved by 2030 (Blicharska et al, 2019;Liu et al, 2018;Petersson & Stoett, 2022;Robinson, 2017).…”

“…However, the complexity and diversity of applications of the nexus approach has recently expanded (Estoque, 2023). These studies tend to expand upon the water-energy-food nexus by adding new elements, including climate change (Adeola et al, 2022;Hirwa et al, 2021;Ioannou & Laspidou, 2022), land use (Jaroenkietkajorn & Gheewala, 2021;Kati et al, 2021;Laspidou et al, 2019;Sietz & Neudert, 2022), and health Hirwa et al, 2021;Newell, 2023;OHHLEP et al, 2022). The inclusion of biodiversity and its interlinkages with other sectors (i.e., the biodiversity nexus) has also started to gain traction more recently in terms of studies focused on the waterenergy-food-ecosystem nexus (Carmona-Moreno et al, 2021;Cristiano et al, 2021;UNECE, 2015), the water-energy-food-biodiversity nexus (Moreno Vargas et al, 2023;Stoy et al, 2018;Subedi et al, 2020) or more broadly in terms of the water-energy-food-environment nexus (Hellegers et al, 2008).…”