Governance, institutional and economic frameworks for Urban Forests as Nature-Based Solutions (UF-NBS) (D1.4)

Governance, institutional and economic frameworks in China and Europe are considered to be decisive for the design, implementation and impacts of urban forests as nature-based solutions (UF-NBS). Several lines of inquiry were established to focus the analysis; these were developed in a co-design process with project partners. To provide an evidence base for the analysis, case histories of 22 existing projects were collected: 16 in Europe and 6 in China. The selection of case histories and countries was motivated by the ambition of covering different bio-geographical regions and planning families based on the modified ESPON approach used in the GREEN SURGE FP7 project.

We found that governance, institutional and economic frameworks for UF-NBS are still under development. Support was found from the findings of Xie & Bulkeley (2020) who reported that whilst local planning processes are assumed to be the instigator of urban (NBS), for European cities project-based actions are presently preeminent. We concluded that for this to move up the agenda to city strategic development plans, which are generally guided from the national, regional, and city level, there is a case for an EU-NBS
strategy (including UF-NBS) to influence national thinking. In China, city masterplans set out the high-level policy of the city and all other local plans are subordinate to it. Unlike for its immediate predecessor, the absence of urban forestry from the Chinese 14th five-year plan is offset by the robust structure of the China National Forest City Development Plan (2018 - 2025).

We found that the design, implementation and management of UF-NBS depend on the social, cultural and economic context, but that there is added value in the promotion of good practices and successful stories, as well as innovation. Key informants in the case histories were interested to learn from elsewhere. The case histories are being uploaded to the NetworkNature/OPPLA platform and shared via networks, notably the European Forum on Urban Forestry (EFUF) and the International Forest City conference.

The engagement of civil society (i.e., social groups, citizens) in UF-NBS is still relatively low. This links to the top-down approach described in the majority of the case histories, with the leading role embedded within municipalities. We have identified a need for widening the scope of the co-design processes involving local residents and citizen groups. The engagement of the private sector also seems to be falling short of expectations. Indeed, the funding of UF-NBS relies to a high degree on municipal funds. This has multiple consequences in respect of governance arrangements where citizens are recipients, not co-owners and comakers of proposed solutions, and may also reduce the scope of economic innovations. We have also identified that long-term planning should always be considered in the case of UF-NBS, since funds can be restricted to the duration of project inception leading to a loss of NBS functionality if UF-NBS management declines.