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Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) promise a future where natural, human and technical elements help solving many of the issues plaguing cities. Pollution reduction, increased human wellbeing and climate change adaptation are only some of the challenges targeted by NBSs. However, under the warming climate affecting many of the world's cities, most of modern NBSs will be highly impacted by the same climate factors they hope to mitigate. As in the case of extreme temperatures or altered water availability, these factors can impact and cause the failure in the organisms, technical elements and governance structures that NBSs rely upon, thus decreasing performance, reliability and sustainability of these solutions. In this commentary we propose critical considerations related to designing, building and managing " climate-ready" NBSs – defined as local integrated solutions able to cope with or adapt to climate change. We do so by highlighting examples in heat- and drought-stricken areas across Australian cities as they sit at the global forefront of a hotter world. We discuss in detail i) tolerance and adaptability of NBS to new climates, ii) NBS design for weather extremes and climate-safety margins, iii) NBS trialing and prototyping, and iv) planning for " climate-ready " NBSs. In doing so, we highlight caveats and limitations to propose an implementation framework to make NBSs not only work, but succeed, in a hotter urban world; one that sees 50 °C as a critical limit to sustain urban life and nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Response and adaptation to the impacts of climate change is a vital and increasing requirement for protected area management. On the ground managers of cultural and natural values in protected places have requested practical guidance on how to undertake climate change impact analysis, vulnerability assessment, and adaptation planning together with enhanced capacity for planning with partners, rightsholders and stakeholders. In this paper we explore how co-development and subsequent testing among World Heritage site managers, Indigenous experts and researchers, produced guidance for assessing, responding to and planning for the impacts of climate change on the diverse values of World Heritage sites in Australia. We draw on the diversity of cultural and natural heritage values associated with the terrestrial, coastal and marine environments in Australian World Heritage sites, and the broad range of institutional contexts in these sites, to highlight considerations of relevance to other protected areas (including other World Heritage sites around the world, Ramsar wetlands and marine protected areas). Our paper highlights that, for climate adaptation planning to become a normal part of management, there is a need for ongoing capacity building, including around the use of climate information to inform adaptation planning and implementation, as well as integrating Indigenous perspectives. Building capacity may involve trial and error, negotiation, sharing, sourcing and interpreting new information, and changes in expectations. It will require novel and more dynamic relationships between partners and stakeholders. Managers should include capacity building for climate adaptation planning and implementation as a specific climate adaptation task in their planning. • We present co-developed and tested climate change guidance for World Heritage. • This guidance is co-authored with Indigenous experts. • There is an ongoing need for capacity building in adaptation planning. • Co-development processes can build capacity and bring together diverse knowledge. • World Heritage is a useful context for understanding climate adaptation planning needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Urban environments are being subject to increasing temperatures due to the combined effects of global climate change and urban heat. These increased temperatures, coupled with human planting preferences and green space management practices, influence how urban plants grow and survive. Urban community gardens are an increasingly popular land use, and a green space type that is influenced by unique climate-human behavior interactions. Despite ongoing rapid temperature changes in cities, it is unknown how gardeners are adapting to these changes, and to what extent changes influence planting decisions and patterns of urban plant diversity. In this study, we monitored the variation in daily air temperatures and measured plant species richness at the garden and garden plot scale in 11 community gardens in Melbourne, Australia. We surveyed >180 gardeners to better understand the relationships between temperature variation, garden plant species diversity, and gardener management practices. We found that garden scale temperature variability is driven by regional context, and temperatures are more stable in landscapes with higher impervious surface cover. Gardeners agreed that climatic/temperature changes are influencing their watering behavior, but not their plant selection. Instead plant selection is being driven by desired food production. Yet, when comparing two bioregions, temperature did have a measurable relationship with garden plant composition in the region with more temperature variation. Temperature variability negatively related to plant species richness within garden plots, providing evidence that plant survival is related to climate at this scale in such regions. Although gardeners may be able to water more in response to regional climate changes, gardeners are unlikely to be able to completely control the effects of temperature on plant survival in more variable conditions. This suggests the inner city with more stable temperatures (albeit potentially hotter for longer due to heat island) may accommodate more species diverse gardens. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights • Temperature variability affects urban garden management and resource use. • Three scale approach examined drivers of variability and social-ecological effects. • Landscape affects temperature variability to effect plant richness in plots. • Climate changes prompt gardeners to adjust water use, but not plant selection. • Plant survival mitigation strategies may still be climate-dependent in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban gardens in Central California are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, experiencing both extended high heat periods as well as water restrictions because of severe drought conditions. This puts these critical community-based food production systems at risk as California is expected to experience increasing weather extremes. In agricultural systems, increased vegetation complexity, such as greater structure or biodiversity, can increase the resilience of food production systems from climate fluctuations. We test this theory in 15 urban gardens across California's Central Coast. Local- and landscape-scale measures of ground, vegetation, and land cover were collected in and around each garden, while climate loggers recorded temperatures in each garden in 30 min increments. Multivariate analyses, using county as a random factor, show that both local- and landscape-scale factors were important. All factors were significant predictors of mean temperature. Tallest vegetation, tree/shrub species richness, grass cover, mulch cover, and landscape level agricultural cover were cooling factors; in contrast, garden size, garden age, rock cover, herbaceous species richness, and landscape level urban cover were warming factors. Results were similar for the maximum temperature analysis except that agriculture land cover and herbaceous species richness were not significant predictors of maximum temperature. Analysis of gardener watering behavior to observed temperatures shows that garden microclimate was significantly related to the number of minutes watered as well as the number of liters of water used per watering event. Thus gardeners seem to respond to garden microclimate in their watering behavior even though this behavior is most probably motivated by a range of other factors such as water regulations and time availability. This research shows that local management of ground cover and vegetation can reduce mean and maximum temperatures in gardens, and the reduced temperatures may influence watering behavior of gardeners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change adaptation presents a difficult challenge for coastal towns around the world, forcing local governments to plan for sea level rise in a contentious decision-making space. The concept of “adaptation pathways,” a diagnostic and analytical tool to assist in adaptive planning and decision-making, is gaining traction as a way of framing and informing climate adaptation. It provides decisionmakers a way to acknowledge the inter-temporal complexities and uncertainties associated with the novel dynamics of climate change and a mechanism to manage these challenges in the local context. In 2012, the Australian Government funded an 18-month program to provide decisionmakers in the coastal zone an opportunity to test the utility of the adaptation pathways concept for coastal climate adaptation. Using a selection of completed projects as case studies, we performed a document analysis to better understand the learnings from the projects. The main themes surrounded: (1) the utility of the adaptation pathway framework in developing options, (2) decision-making rationale and criteria, and (3) stakeholder participation in pathway development. A project participant survey was developed to further understand these themes. Our analysis reveals that “adaptation pathways” was generally framed narrowly and conservatively to emphasize extant economic, administrative and legal considerations over community, participatory, or exploratory ones. Although some case study projects were able to reach a point in the pathway discussion to actively involve stakeholders in their decision-making process, many case studies continued to build technical data as a method for defending policies and actions. These results indicate that coastal adaptation can take-up adaptation pathways as a useful concept for decision-making and planning; however, many councils may still require assistance in stakeholder communication processes in order to develop sociallyacceptable plans that take into account the full range of values affecting local coastal environments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: With increasing patterns of climate change and variability, water resources for agriculture may become more unpredictable. The possibilities of decreased precipitation and increased competition for water resources will be especially important for farmers who depend on rainfed agriculture. A study of coffee agroforestry systems in Southern Mexico (Chiapas, Mexico) was conducted to examine the ability of shade trees to maintain water availability for the coffee crop in a shade agroecosystem. Soil moisture, soil evaporation rates, and the evaporative transpiration potential of coffee plants were measured to examine the amount of water available to coffee plants and potential amount of water lost by the soil and coffee plants in systems under varying levels of shade cover. Soil evaporation and evaporative demand for crop transpiration were compared in coffee systems under different levels of shade canopy during both the wet season and dry season between July 2004 and June 2005. With 60–80% shade cover, daily soil evaporation rates significantly decreased by 41% compared to the low shade site (10–30% shade), although high levels of soil moisture were maintained in the dry season with only 30–65% shade cover. Coffee transpiration demand was strongly affected by shade cover as shade cover affects microclimate and the radiant energy within the system. Microclimate factors (light, temperature, and air saturation vapor pressure deficit) showed strong correlations to evaporative demand as a result. Shade cover ≥30% showed significant reductions of 32% in evaporative transpiration demand when compared to the low shade site. The presence of shade cover in agroforestry systems is capable of reducing overall evaporative demand from soil evaporation and coffee transpiration, therefore offering a higher level of crop protection for farmers with agricultural vulnerability to reduced water resources. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

An inevitable consequence of global climate change is that altered patterns of temperature and precipitation threaten agriculture in many tropical regions, requiring strategies of human adaptation. Moreover, the process of management intensification in agriculture has increased and may exacerbate vulnerability to climate extremes. Although many solutions have been presented, the role of simple agroecological and agroforestry management has been largely ignored. Some recent literature has shown how sustainable management may improve agroecological resistance to extreme climate events. We comment specifically on a prevalent form of agriculture throughout Latin America, the coffee agroforestry system. Results from the coffee literature have shown that shade management in coffee systems may mitigate the effects of extreme temperature and precipitation, thereby reducing the ecological and economic vulnerability of many rural farmers. We conclude that more traditional forms of agriculture can offer greater potential for adapting to changing conditions than do current intensive systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Current climate change patterns may cause more extreme and variable climates in the future, threatening agricultural productivity in many areas of the world. Because many smallholder, rural farmers depend on subsistence, rainfed agriculture, priorities should be focused on coping mechanisms that protect these farmers from future vulnerabilities. This paper examines one possible adaptive strategy for coffee agriculture. A high (60–80%), medium (35–65%), and low (10–30%) shade coffee site were chosen in the Soconusco region of Chiapas, Mexico. Microclimate and soil moisture data were collected to examine the ability of shade tree cover in an agroforestry system to protect crop plants against extremes in microclimate and soil moisture fluctuation. Site and site by time effects were analyzed using linear mixed models to compare mean differences of microclimate measurements (temperature, relative humidity, and solar radiation) by site as well as by time of the day. Although there were not large differences in seasonal means for these factors, site by time effects show that temperature, humidity, and solar radiation fluctuations increase significantly as shade cover decreases. Soil data showed significantly larger fluctuations in soil moisture gain and loss in the low shade site respective of patterns of precipitation. Overall, the amount of shade cover was directly related to the mitigation of variability in microclimate and soil moisture for the crop of interest. The use of agroforestry systems is an economically feasible way to protect crop plants from extremes in microclimate and soil moisture and should be considered a potential adaptive strategy for farmers in areas that will suffer from extremes in climate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Climatically similar regions may experience different temperature extremes and weather patterns that warrant global comparisons of local microclimates. Urban agroecosystems are interesting sites to examine the multidimensional impacts of climate changes because they rely heavily on human intervention to maintain crop production under different and changing climate conditions. Here, we used urban community gardens across the California Central Coast metropolitan region, USA, and the Melbourne metropolitan region, Australia, to investigate how habitat-scale temperatures differ across climatically similar regions, and how people may be adapting their gardening behaviors to not only regional temperatures, but also to the local weather patterns around them. We show that, while annual means are very similar, there are strong interregional differences in temperature variability likely due to differences in the scale and scope of the temperature measurements, and regional topography. However, the plants growing within these systems are largely the same. The similarities may be due to gardeners' capacities to adapt their gardening behaviors to reduce the adverse effects of local temperature variability on the productivity of their plot. Thus, gardens can serve as sites where people build their knowledge of local weather patterns and adaptive capacity to climate change and urban heat. Climate-focused studies in urban landscapes should consider how habitat-scale temperature variability is a background for interesting and meaningful social-ecological interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]