This chapter provides an account of different sources of finance for urban nature, the actors involved in providing these sources of finance, and various financial mechanisms through which the sources and the actors are mobilised. It focuses on the four principal models of investing in urban nature, which include funding solicited through public funds, private capital, community/not-for profit funding, and hybrid and collaborative approaches. The chapter discusses the current situation, barriers, and opportunities for investing in urban nature, along with relevant examples. It concludes with insights on how to facilitate more investments in urban nature and support its mainstreaming in cities. The chapter engages with two case studies to illustrate its key messages: Parc Marianne Ecodistrict: investment by real estate developers stipulated by municipality in Montpellier, France, and Mexico City Water Fund: hybrid investing in urban nature in Mexico City, Mexico.

This chapter provides an insight into how the value of nature is conceptualised and the different kinds of values that nature has. It identifies the difference between approaches that consider nature to have primarily an instrumental value – where it is of use to society – and those which focus on the intrinsic value of nature, that is, where the value of nature has as an end in and of itself. The chapter explores how this plays out in the urban arena and what implications this has for methods and ways to assess different values of nature. Through a detailed account of values and benefits, potential economic assessment techniques and their limitations, this chapter also presents how these techniques capture the values of diverse stakeholders and discusses the implications when stakeholders attribute different and sometimes conflicting values and benefits. The chapter engages with two case studies to illustrate its key messages: Cape Town Environmental Education Trust in Cape Town, South Africa, and Beekeeping at Audi Hungaria in Győr, Hungary.

This chapter focuses on understanding how urban nature is conceived, imagined, framed, and utilised in relation to specific urban sustainability challenges. Urban nature and nature-based solutions are sites for interventions to develop new kinds of solutions based on the value that nature is seen to be able to provide. The chapter investigates the technical and biophysical properties of urban nature and nature-based solutions by presenting eight types of urban ecological domains, illustrated with practical examples, as well as an initial categorisation of urban landscape domains. In addition, the ecosystem services associated with different types of urban nature and nature-based solutions are outlined, including provisioning services, regulating services, habitat and supporting services, and cultural services. The chapter engages with two case studies to illustrate its key messages: BiodiverCity in Malmö, Sweden, and the Tolka Valley Park in Dublin, Ireland.

This chapter outlines the different conceptual frameworks that can be used to better understand the evolving role nature has played in cities. It distinguishes between socioecological systems and urban political ecology, each of which influence how nature has been regarded and treated in different time periods and urban settings. It seeks to provide an overview of these concepts and explain their implications for how urban nature and nature-based solutions are constructed and viewed today as an urban policy issue. The chapter presents different approaches to understanding urban nature, nature-based solutions, and the relationship between nature and cities. It also discusses the emergence of urban nature and nature-based solutions as a response to urban sustainability challenges. The chapter engages with two case studies to illustrate its key messages: Urban Forest Strategy in Melbourne, Australia, and the Eco-Valley of Tianjin Eco-City in Tianjin, China.

Mainstreaming urban nature and nature-based solutions requires that we understand the key challenges and opportunities that are facing projects on the ground. This chapter revisits the main themes of the textbook, providing concise conclusions about the key points, arguments, and findings presented in the previous chapters and summarising the key implications for urban nature and nature-based solutions in the context of transformative pathways for sustainability. To break the dominance of grey infrastructure, new approaches are needed for the development, implementation, and mainstreaming of nature in cities. The chapter engages with two case studies to illustrate its key messages: Barcelona, Spain, and Sofia, Bulgaria.

This chapter introduces the politics and policy of urban nature and nature-based solutions, stemming from a diversity of flexible governance modes and novel financial arrangements with a strong involvement of local communities. It opens with a discussion of the different visions of nature that are present in cities, followed by a more detailed examination of two particularly conflicting visions: the extent to which nature is to be mobilised as a tool for public welfare versus one for private profit. Then the chapter situates nature-based solutions in the context of three specific debates that illustrate their political and contested nature. First, the extent to which the drive for multi-functionality of urban nature can be a double-edged sword. Second, the tensions between green growth and gentrification and the pitfalls of greening exclusionary urban change. And finally, the need to consider issues of justice and equity within nature-based solutions. Through case studies of innovative park management in Newcastle, the United Kingdom, and East-Boston rail-to-trail Greenway in Boston, the United States, the chapter highlights enabling conditions that can drive systemic, just, ecologically sustainable and genuine integration of nature into urban life and policy.

This chapter presents innovation pathways for urban nature and nature-based solutions that are appearing in cities. Innovation pathways are journeys that involve key drivers, decision-making junctures, agents, and opportunities. The chapter provides a typology of nature-based innovations and unpacks the underlying conditions enabling and constraining the mainstreaming of these innovations through the nature-based solutions innovation system framework. It also discusses localised innovation processes. The chapter provides potential explanations for path dependencies through urban development regimes that enable or constrain these initiatives and systems. From these three sets of dynamics, the chapter aims to provide an understanding about what shapes the pathways through which urban nature and nature-based innovations emerge and open the gateway to potential intervention points towards sustainability. The chapter presents recent innovation pathways for urban nature through case studies from Leidsche Rijn water system in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and Little France Park in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, to explore the interconnections between nature, innovation and urban sustainability that indicate the emergence of a global agenda.

This chapter provides critical insights in the important role urban citizens play in urban nature and nature-based solutions. More specifically, it focuses on how citizens and communities interact with and value nature in cities, what resources they offer and need for this interaction, with what associated costs and benefits, and under what conditions. It starts with a discussion of the three key forms of justice (procedural, recognitional, and distributional) that are addressed by and constitute reasons for enhanced citizen participation. Building on this discussion, the chapter then outlines different forms of participation that have been applied in the design and implementation of nature-based solutions. Challenges and obstacles are discussed before concluding with suggestions for how to tackle them. The chapter presents and seeks to inspire different novel approaches of engagement and their associated benefits, which can range from local community empowerment, creation of greater senses of ownership, enhancement of urban citizenship and belonging, and decreasing social exclusion. The chapter engages with two case studies to illustrate its key messages: urban gardens in Leipzig, Germany, and Roerplein pocket park in Utrecht, the Netherlands.