Blueprint for evaluating the climate resilience of natural areas

Abstract

Natural areas play a crucial role in enhancing resilience to climate change (CC). Whether naturally occurring, designed for urban planning purposes, or as nature-based solutions, these areas contribute to CC mitigation, support adaptation to climate impacts, and face societal challenges. Integrating natural areas into a holistic resilience assessment – like other urban services, e.g., stormwater management – offers significant benefits. Identifying key opportunities and priorities for strengthening resilience becomes more straightforward, especially when considering the interactions between services and infrastructure and the role of communities. This approach acknowledges the interdependencies between services and provides a unified assessment structure across departments, fostering intersectoral solutions for water services, mobility, energy, and blue-green areas, in both consolidated and expanding urban zones, as well as peri-urban rural settlements. This paper introduces a module designed specifically for natural areas, within a resilience assessment framework (RAF) tailored to urban services. This tool can contribute to identifying gaps in resilience policies and support the selection of better adaptation strategies. The paper details the RAF's structure, including the service profile and the assessment metrics. It aims to support governance and planning of natural areas, highlighting their own resilience and contributions to overall resilience to CC.