Cities are increasingly challenged by rapid expansion and climate change, placing growing pressure on urban water systems in particular. Nature-based solutions (NbS), often implemented as blue-green infrastructure, are particularly relevant in contemporary urban environments since they promote on-site water infiltration and storage, thereby improving water quality and reducing flood risk. They are also widely recognized as multifunctional solutions that can deliver a range of ecosystem services, including urban climate regulation, protection of human health, biodiversity restoration, and the provision of accessible public spaces.
Despite this multifunctional potential, the design, planning, and implementation of NbS often remain sector-specific and fail to adequately account for multiple environmental, social, and economic objectives. Addressing these challenges requires interdisciplinary perspectives not only across environmental engineering, urban planning, and governance, but also within each of these domains, where diverse methodological, conceptual, and institutional approaches must be better integrated.
This session focuses on integrated approaches for the implementation of multifunctional NbS in urban areas. We invite contributions from engineering, planning, and policy that examine how NbS can be designed, evaluated, and governed to address multiple objectives simultaneously, including sustainable water management, urban climate regulation, biodiversity enhancement, and the use of public spaces.
Topics of Interest:
• Quantitative assessments and integrated modeling frameworks evaluating multiple benefits of blue-green infrastructure and other NBS
• Identification of synergies and trade-offs in the design and implementation of multifunctional NBS
• Methodological, institutional, and conceptual challenges of interdisciplinary research and practice
• Governance, planning, and policy dimensions shaping the adoption, performance, and scaling of NBS across urban sectors