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Abstract Promoting people-nature relationships is essential for the effective adoption of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in cities. Across scientific domains, the potential of eXtended Reality (XR) technologies as a novel tool to support and enable people-nature relationships is increasingly highlighted. However, the application of XR in urban NBS planning remains uncertain. Through a scoping review of the literature, we found five major application areas for employing XR in the context of people-nature relationships: perception and preference assessment, spatial planning and design, education and awareness enhancement, psychological intervention, and monitoring and maintenance. In this paper, we examine how nature’s instrumental, relational, and intrinsic values are communicated through XR and explore the potential role that XR technologies can play in promoting people-nature relationships. Furthermore, we discuss the implications of adopting XR technologies for urban NBS planning. 

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are used to transform existing unsustainable and undesirable path dependencies in cities. For NBS to contribute to just urban transformations, a stronger inter- and transdisciplinary knowledge base is needed. This knowledge base is essential to engage with six complex yet crucial questions about NBS, including “for what?,” “which nature?,” “where?,” “how?,” “when,” and “for whom?.” To address these questions, we identify two critical opportunities to advance the knowledge of NBS. First, we argue for solidifying interdisciplinary approaches to examine how NBS can be designed, planned, and implemented for multifunctionality. Second, we argue that researchers need to work transdisciplinarily with diverse stakeholders to ensure the design, siting, and planning of NBS are appropriate to the context. In both critical opportunities, justice should be a core guiding principle from the beginning of planning the NBS, starting with the foundational understanding that NBS are not inherently just or unjust. Instead, their value depends on a holistic examination of the context in which they operate and the institutional logic that guides their planning. To center justice in the inter- and transdisciplinary research and practice of NBS, a knowledge shift from epistemological injustice to epistemological inclusivity is a critical way forward. 

Nature-based solutions (NbS) have emerged as a key strategy for sustainably addressing multiple urban challenges, with rapidly increasing knowledge production requiring synthesis to better understand whether and how NbS work in different social, ecological, economic, or governance contexts. Insights in this Perspective are drawn from a thematic review of 61 NbS review articles supported by an expert assessment of NbS knowledge in seven global regions to examine key challenges, fill gaps in Global South assessment, and provide insights for scaling up NbS for impact in cities. Eight NbS challenges emerged from our review of NbS reviews including conceptual, thematic, geographic, ecological, inclusivity, health, governance, and systems challenges. An additional expert assessment reviewing literature and cases in seven global regions further revealed the following: 1) Local context-based ecological knowledge is essential for NbS success; 2) Improved technical knowledge is required for planning and designing NbS; 3) NbS need to be included in all levels of planning and governance; 4) Putting justice and equity at the center of urban NbS approaches is critical, and 5) Inclusive and participatory governance processes will be key to long-term success of NbS. We synthesized findings from the NbS review results and regional expert assessments to offer four critical pathways for scaling up NbS: 1) foster new NbS research, technological innovation, and learning, 2) build a global NbS alliance for sharing knowledge, 3) ensure a systems approach to NbS planning and implementation, and 4) increase financing and political will for diverse NbS implementation. 

This paper builds on the expansion of urban ecology from a biologically based discipline—ecologyinthe city—to an increasingly interdisciplinary field—ecologyofthe city—to a transdisciplinary, knowledge to action endeavor—an ecologyforandwiththe city. We build on this “prepositional journey” by proposing a transformative shift in urban ecology, and we present a framework for how the field may continue this shift. We conceptualize that urban ecology is in a state of flux, and that this shift is needed to transform urban ecology into a more engaged and action based field, and one that includes a diversity of actors willing to participate in the future of their cities. In this transformative shift, these actors will engage, collaborate, and participate in a continuous spiral of knowledge → action → knowledge spiral and back to knowledge loop, with the goal of co producing sustainable and resilient solutions to myriad urban challenges. Our framework for this transformative shift includes three pathways: (1) a repeating knowledge → action → knowledge spiral of ideas, information, and solutions produced by a diverse community of agents of urban change working together in an “urban sandbox”; (2) incorporation of a social–ecological–technological systems framework in this spiral and expanding the spiral temporally to include the “deep future,” where future scenarios are based on a visioning of seemingly unimaginable or plausible future states of cities that are sustainable and resilient; and (3) the expansion of the spiral in space, to include rural areas and places that are not yet cities. The three interrelated pathways that define the transformative shift demonstrate the power of an urban ecology that has moved beyond urban systems science and into a realm where collaborations among diverse knowledges and voices are working together to understand cities and what is urban while producing sustainable solutions to contemporary challenges and envisioning futures of socially, ecologically, and technologically resilient cities. We present case study examples of each of the three pathways that make up this transformative shift in urban ecology and discuss both limitations and opportunities for future research and action with this transdisciplinary broadening of the field. 

Abstract This perspective emerged from ongoing dialogue among ecologists initiated by a virtual workshop in 2021. A transdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners conclude that urban ecology as a science can better contribute to positive futures by focusing on relationships, rather than prioritizing urban structures. Insights from other relational disciplines, such as political ecology, governance, urban design, and conservation also contribute. Relationality is especially powerful given the need to rapidly adapt to the changing social and biophysical drivers of global urban systems. These unprecedented dynamics are better understood through a relational lens than traditional structural questions. We use three kinds of coproduction—of the social-ecological world, of science, and of actionable knowledge—to identify key processes of coproduction within urban places. Connectivity is crucial to relational urban ecology. Eight themes emerge from the joint explorations of the paper and point toward social action for improving life and environment in urban futures. 

Abstract Australia is experiencing mounting pressures related to processes of urbanisation, biodiversity loss and climate change felt at large in cities. At the same time, it is cities that can take the leading role in pioneering approaches and solutions to respond to those coupling emergencies. In this perspective piece we respond to the following question: What are the required transformations for prioritising, valuing, maintaining and embracing nature in cities in Australia? We adopt the mission framework as an organising framework to present proposed pathways to transform Australian cities as nature-positive places of the future. We propose three interconnected pathways as starting actions to steer urban planning, policy and governance in Australian cities: First, cities need to establish evidence-based planning for nature in cities and mainstream new planning tools that safeguard and foreground urban nature. Second, collaborative planning needs to become a standard practice in cities and inclusive governance for nature in cities needs to prioritise Aboriginal knowledge systems and practices as well as look beyond what local governments can do. Third, for progressing to nature-positive cities, it is paramount to empower communities to innovate with nature across Australian cities. Whilst we focus on Australian cities, the lessons and pathways are broadly applicably globally and can inspire science-policy debates for the post COP15 biodiversity and COP26 climate change implementation processes.