Blog, Collaborative Learning, Nature-based solutions, Urban trees

Discover this new publication on Nature-Based Approaches for Urban Recovery in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era by CLEARING HOUSE partner Clive Davies along with Raffaele Lafortezza!

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to construction-led development as part of recovery plans in Europe, overshadowing nature-based agendas in terms of scale, size, and policy.

Clive Davies, Senior Researcher and in-house consultant at EFI, Bonn has recently published a paper in ‘Environmental Research’ titled ‘Pandemic urban development is leading us away from nature’.  Produced in conjunction with the EU funded CLEARING HOUSE project and jointly authored with Raffaele Lafortezza at partner UNIBA in Bari, Italy.  The article explores how recovery plans in Europe in the COVID-19 pandemic era have stimulated construction-led development, which has eclipsed nature-based agendas in terms of scale, size, and policy.

One estimate is that only 0.3% of spending on urban infrastructure globally is directed towards various nature-based solutions and other ecosystem efforts supporting human well-being. The paper concludes that in the future we will urgently need to employ nature-based approaches in crisis management for the power and potential of nature to be fully employed in pursuit of urban recovery. Clive and Raffaele strongly recommend that nature-based approaches are an explicit requirement to secure funding from future recovery plans.

Learn more about this new publication!

Both authors have also participated in the writting of other publications. Have a look at  them now!

Clive Davies, Wendy Y. Chen, Giovanni Sanesi, Raffaele Lafortezza,
The European Union roadmap for implementing nature-based solutions: A review, Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 121, 2021, Pages 49-67,
ISSN 1462-9011, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2021.03.018.

Clive Davies, Raffaele Lafortezza,
Transitional path to the adoption of nature-based solutions,
Land Use Policy, Volume 80, 2019, Pages 406-409,
ISSN 0264-8377, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.09.020.

Strategic green infrastructure planning and urban forestry
In Ferrini, F., Konijnendijk van den Bosch, C.C., & Fini, A. (Eds.). (2017).
Routledge Handbook of Urban Forestry (1st ed.).
Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315627106