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• Robust impact evaluation frameworks for nature-based solutions that assess multifunctionality are virtually inexistent. • There are many conceptual problems and empirical gaps in evaluation schemes for nature-based solutions. • The pathways connecting nature-based solutions and outcomes should be systematically defined and assessed. • Trade-offs between outcomes and among social groups should be identified. • Long-term evaluation of outcomes should become more common. Cities all over the world are confronting intertwined environmental, social and economic problems and aim to become resilient to climate change and promote wellbeing for all their citizens. Nature-based solutions have been proposed as a promising policy approach to addressing urban problems for the potential they have to deliver multiple benefits and foster wellbeing for individuals and communities. However, the evidence for their multiple benefits is rather scarce and highly fragmented, and more robust frameworks for the monitoring and assessment of their impacts are needed to guide urban policy-making. This paper focuses on the current state of impact assessment of nature-based solutions in Europe and through a systematic review of the literature identifies four conceptual problems and three empirical gaps that impede the accumulation of solid evidence regarding of the impacts of different types of nature-based solutions for different social groups; as well as of the contextual conditions that contribute to their performance and delivery of multiple outcomes. Based on the identified mis-conceptualizations and gaps, we derive a series of principles that should guide the development of robust impact assessment frameworks for nature-based solutions. We discuss the policy implications of these gaps and principles. We conclude by making a series of recommendations that should inform the design of impact monitoring and evaluation frameworks in cities, in order to develop the comparative evidence base on the effectiveness of nature-based solutions. This, in turn, can inform urban decision-making on the appropriate design, implementation, and long-term regeneration of nature-based solutions, to ensure long-term delivery of important ecosystem services for different social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• European cities are making explicit contributions to biodiversity through nature-based solutions, using quantitative targets. • The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework should incorporate the goals of Conserve, Restore, and Thrive that cities pursue for biodiversity. • Urban NBS need to further integrate biodiversity goals, as well as restoration actions that emphasize species and genetic diversity. In this paper, we examine how cities are working with nature-based solutions for biodiversity. Drawing on a sample of 199 nature-based solutions across Europe, we identify how cities work with nature-based solutions to conserve nature, restore nature, and to find ways to thrive through harnessing nature's contribution to people. Our findings show that cities are making explicit contributions to biodiversity through nature-based solutions, and often adopt specific and quantifiable targets to guide their actions. Yet there is significant variation in the ways in which biodiversity goals and interventions are being pursued. Where biodiversity goals and actions are included in nature-based solutions, they are mainly ecosystem-based - focusing on the protection, restoration or enhancement of the integrity, functionality, and connectivity of habitats and ecosystems - with fewer focused on specific species, and very few projects concerned with genetic diversity. Although it is often assumed that urban action towards biodiversity goals will be undertaken through local planning processes, our analysis shows that European cities are taking project-based actions for biodiversity through a set of explicit, quantitative and measurable targets, which are tailored to the specific conditions of urban settings. On the basis of these findings, we suggest that if cities are to achieve ambitious goals for biodiversity over the next decade, new international frameworks being developed for the post-2020 period should include targets that acknowledge the way in which biodiversity is governed in cities and the contribution that cities make to conserve, restore and thrive with nature to guide urban action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A new spatial typology of climate change risk for European cities and regions. • Response to IPCC call to understand climate change risks at sub-national levels. • Uneven climate change risk across the 33 countries covered by the typology. • Differences in risk profiles facing urban, rural and peri -urban areas. • Evidence of spatial clustering in climate change risk across typology classes. This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of climate change risk through the development of a new spatially-explicit typology of climate risk for European cities and regions. In doing so, it offers a direct response to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) call to advance awareness of climate change risks at sub-national levels through the integration of hazard, exposure and vulnerability domains into a composite risk classification that covers the whole of Europe. K-means clustering was applied to 49 variables at NUTS3 level where the final classification resulted in an upper-tier of eight 'classes', which were subsequently partitioned to derive a lower-tier of 31 'sub-classes'. A three-stage analysis of the eight-fold class configuration was then undertaken focusing on the distribution of climate risk classes, raising significant issues to inform climate change adaptation planning policy, practice and research. The analysis revealed an uneven distribution of climate change risk across the 33 countries covered by the typology, reinforcing the IPCC message that adapting and building resilience to climate change risk is not a 'one-size-fits-all' exercise. In the second stage, the analysis focused on determining whether there was a difference in the climate change risk facing different settlement types in Europe. The analysis revealed the extent of variation in the climate change risk characteristics of Europe's urban and rural areas, revealing the potential for peri -urban areas to fall between climate change risk agendas or priorities when compared to urban–rural contexts. The final component of our analysis considered the extent to which climate change risk classes exhibit patterns of spatial clustering. Here we found that climate change risk exhibits evidence of spatial clustering but the extent of the clustering varies between different classes as the relationship between contiguous NUTS3 regions changes. This finding has notable implications for transboundary adaptation planning where discontinuities in political buy-in, competition, resourcing and awareness of risk could serve to undermine the coherence and adequacy of policy responses at a time when greater cooperation and alignment is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biocultural diversity is an evolving perspective for studying the interrelatedness between people and their natural environment, not only in ecoregional hotspots and cultural landscapes, but also in urban green spaces. Developed in the 1990s in order to denote the diversity of life in all its manifestations―biological, cultural and linguistic―co-evolving within complex socio-ecological systems such as cities, biocultural diversity was identified in the GREEN SURGE project as a response to recent challenges cities face. Most important challenges are the loss of nature and degradation of ecosystems in and around cities as well as an alienation of urban residents from and loss of interaction with nature. The notion of biocultural diversity is dynamic in nature and takes local values and practices of relating to biodiversity of different cultural groups as a starting point for sustainable living with biodiversity. The issue is not only how to preserve or restore biocultural practices and values, but also how to modify, adapt and create biocultural diversity in ways that resonate with urban transformations. As future societies will largely diverge from today's societies, the cultural perspective on living with (urban) nature needs careful reconsideration. Biocultural diversity is not conceived as a definite concept providing prescriptions of what to see and study, but as a reflexive and sensitising concept that can be used to assess the different values and knowledge of people that reflect how they live with biodiversity. This short communication paper introduces a conceptual framework for studying the multi-dimensional features of biocultural diversity in cities along the three key dimensions of materialized, lived and stewardship, being departure points from which biocultural diversity can be studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]