Conceptual framework for mapping and modelling ecosystem services. REGREEN Deliverable D3.3.

Cities are complex systems which encapsulate highly inter-connected and overlapping domains of built infrastructure, natural green and blue space components and interfacing all of this are people. Despite people being at the heart of everything that happens in cities, the role of people, and an understanding of who benefits (or not) from NBS tends to be addressed in a fragmented way in city policy and planning processes. There is a need for integrated approaches, which explicitly recognise the natural components and processes which underpin NBS and how they deliver ecosystem services. Such integrated approaches must also take account of how people interact with and benefit from NBS. This report aims to introduce and develop a conceptualisation of NBS, which at its core represents the complex interactions between natural components and people which are essential to providing ecosystem services, and in turn the interactions which are essential for managing the urban social-ecological system. In detail, we i) present a framework which places NBS in an urban context, acknowledging the contribution of natural capital and other forms of capital to NBS, and the interactions with people which deliver the ecosystem services and resulting wellbeing benefits in cities, ii) develop an internally consistent feature-based typology for NBS together with an evidence-based assessment of the functions that NBS provide, and iii) illustrate how an understanding of these interactions can be used to assess the multiple benefits that derive from different types of NBS. We conclude with recommendations on how to apply the framework in an urban planning context. A part of below article has subsequently been published in a peer-reviewed journal: Jones, L., Anderson, S., Læssøe, J., Banzhaf, E., Jensen, A., Bird, D.N., Miller, J., Hutchins, M.G., Yang, J., Garrett, J., Taylor, T., Wheeler, B.W., Lovell, R., Fletcher, D., Qu, Y., Vieno, M., Zandersen, M., Jensen, A., Bird, D.N., Miller, J., Hutchins, M.G., Yang, J., Garrett, J., Taylor, T., Wheeler, B.W., Lovell, R., Fletcher, D., Qu, Y., Vieno, M., Zandersen, M., 2022. A typology for urban Green Infrastructure to guide multifunctional planning of nature-based solutions. Nature-Based Solutions 100041. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nbsj.2022.100041