Advancing Nature-Based Solutions with Artificial Intelligence: A Bibliometric and Semantic Analysis Using ChatGPT

Subject. We investigate the potential for integration of ecosystem approaches to "nature-based solutions" and circular economy aimed at sustainable development. Objectives. The focus is on implementation of principles of circular economy and "natural solutions" as important elements of the sustainable development plan. Methods. We employ analytical and logical methods, theoretical and practical issues of sustainable development in the context of concepts of circular and natural economy. Results. We address the evolution of the circular economy concept, emphasize that it cannot support sustainability, if social processes are ignored. The paper explores the intersection points of the circular and green economy. It shows that ecosystem approaches result in environmental, social, and economic benefits. The potential of achieving sustainability through the synergy of "nature-based solutions" and circular business models is demonstrated on the case of reusing urban wastewater. Conclusions. The circular economy cannot be considered as a stage in the "green economy" development. It is important to use them together, when sustainable development strategies are designed. "Natural solutions" provide opportunities for interdisciplinary studies on development and implementation of nature-based solutions, their versatility creates a potential for trade-offs. Cities have a potential to implement sustainable development concepts through the synergy of "natural solutions" and circular business models. Integrated use of the potential of complementary concepts is required.

Despite the increasing recognition of the critical role that nature-based solutions (NBS) play in urban resilience, decision-makers in many cities across the Global South continue to prioritize grey infrastructure and engineered solutions. This prevailing approach may offer short-term economic advantages but ultimately falls short in ensuring the long-term sustainability and resilience of communities facing the challenges of a changing climate. This article aims to identify the main enabling factors that foster the application and implementation of NBS in cities, through a detailed analysis of urban NBS case studies. For this reason, the research focused on grey literature, providing insights into real-world implementation and identified 52 case studies through a thorough review of web databases and relevant publications on NBS case studies, supplemented by a web-based questionnaire distributed to identify additional cases. A qualitative methodology was employed to analyse the data collected for each case, covering various phases of each project, including planning, delivery, and stewardship. The findings indicate that enabling the implementation of urban NBS in the Global South requires attention to four key dimensions: good governance, financial feasibility and economic sustainability, social acceptance, and environmental sustainability. Additionally, the results highlight the importance of cross-cutting pathways emerging from these dimensions, such as adopting an integrated, context-specific, and data-driven approach in planning and implementation, enabling mechanisms for participatory approaches and multi-stakeholder engagement, planning for the delivery of multiple benefits by NBS, and prioritizing NBS in urban land acquisition and management policies.

Seven lessons for planning nature-based solutions in cities

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have emerged as a vital approach to climate adaptation, offering ecological, economic, and social benefits. Beyond addressing risks such as flooding and heatwaves, NbS practices have demonstrated the critical role of social and political enablers in ensuring their success and scalability. These enablers, embedded within NbS initiatives, provide valuable insights for designing broader climate adaptation strategies replicable across diverse urban contexts.The Adaptation Gap Report 2024 highlights the need to address persistent systemic challenges, including gaps in governance and social inclusion, which limit the scalability of climate adaptation efforts. Building on this context, this research examines NbS practices from China and Europe to analyze and present the key dimensions of social and political enablers embedded in successful NbS initiatives. These enablers are categorized into four critical dimensions:Educational and Capacity-Building Infrastructure: Programs that enhance technical expertise and community awareness lay the foundation for effective NbS implementation and long-term sustainability. Institutional Arrangements: Governance frameworks that enable cross-sectoral collaboration ensure that NbS are seamlessly embedded into urban planning and policy strategies. Community Engagement: Inclusive approaches that prioritize local participation create trust, foster ownership, and align NbS initiatives with community needs, enhancing their long-term sustainability. Leadership and Vision: Strong leadership at both municipal and grassroots levels facilitates stakeholder alignment, resource mobilization, and the sustained scaling of NbS. This study provides a structured framework for understanding how these dimensions contribute to the effectiveness of NbS and their scalability. It argues that broader climate adaptation actions can benefit from their transformative potential by integrating social and political enablers into NbS design and governance.This research underscores the importance of prioritizing non-structural enablers alongside technical innovations to bridge the systemic barriers identified in global reports. By scaling lessons learned from NbS, this study offers actionable pathways for advancing resilient and adaptive urban systems worldwide.

Floods are a reoccurring global phenomenon. Practical implementation of flood risk management relies heavily on grey infrastructure with a lesser focus on nature-based solutions (NBS). With the rising awareness about ecosystem services, natural flood management measures are getting more attention from scientists and policymakers. Lithuanian authorities in the national flood risk management plan provide four NBS for flood management: afforestation, wetlands restorations, agri-environmental measures, and water retention in urban areas (e.g., ponds). However, implementation of the NBS requires more land than grey infrastructure. In the case of Lithuania, in some instances, the NBS require a change of the land use or impacts upon the private land. Therefore, it can be influenced by the legal regulations related to land use planning and protection of private property rights. The problems may occur in case of the insufficient, incomplete, incoherent, or contradictory legal framework. The analysis revealed that the Law on the Land, the Law on the Special Land Use Conditions, and the Law on the Territorial Planning are insufficiently coordinated, which may influence implementation of the NBS on the private property. The afforestation is foreseen only for the public land. However, those lands are mainly used for the agriculture, and in this case possibilities to change the land use are restricted. A similar problem may occur if the area for the afforestation lays within the protected area. The Law on the Protected Areas allows land use changes only in exceptional circumstances; the flood mitigation is not one of them. The incoherence or incompleteness of law, which can hamper implementation of NBS, can occur not only in Lithuania. Therefore, the study can be a starting point for further investigations and solutions in this regard.

Multidimensional assessment of a Nature-based Solution for decentralized greywater treatment in Costa Rica

<p>Nature-based Solutions (NbS), inspired or supported by nature, aim to address societal challenges in a fast-changing environment via an integrated and sustainable approach. Effective implementation of such intervention certainly requires compliance with specific societal configurations in different geographies. Here two cases of NbS to hydrological disaster risks are used to demonstrate the relevance of social barriers and opportunities for the full function of NbS.</p><p>Firstly, we introduce a novel large-scale NbS designed for reducing water scarcity in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. In this case, strategic reforestation was planned to bring rainfall to a downwind city taking advantage of atmospheric moisture pathways. In the process of co-designing reforestation sites, experiences from failed reforestation projects have improved the site selection originally based solely on the scientific evidence of the moisture pathways. Social barriers to implementation include underground economic activities and pressures for local food production. The latter factor also implies a trade-off between the fulfilments of different sustainable development goals.</p><p>Secondly, a case of landscape-scale NbS that aims to mitigate flood risk from typhoons in Taiwan will be discussed. It consists of a flood diversion framework that directs excess runoff to local farmlands following Typhoon storms. The concept of payment for ecosystem services has been employed to increase the willingness of farmers and landowners to participate in this framework. Institution of compensation for agricultural loss established from previous meteorological disasters has paved the way for implementation. A combination of subsidies and agricultural loss compensation has offered an opportunity for the new intervention to take place in the rice-cropping landscape, while the effect of this ongoing framework will be further documented.</p><p>These two cases show that the inertia from existing policy/institutional schemes and the lessons from past unsuccessful experiences provide an opportunity to identify and overcome social barriers to the implementation of innovative NbS.</p>

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is facing major threats from climate change and rapid urbanization, particularly increasing hydro-meteorological risks, environmental degradation, and the proliferation of informal settlements. Medium and small cities, which are urbanizing the fastest and make up over two-thirds of SSA cities, remain under researched despite facing mounting vulnerabilities. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) hold a promise as a sustainable solution to these socio-ecological challenges and can deliver co-benefits for climate adaptation, risk mitigation, and urban liveability. This paper synthesizes findings on NbS planning and implementation in SSA, drawing on literature and empirical insights from a doctoral study in Ghana's Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area. It identifies barriers at multiple scales includimg macro/meso (e.g.policy and governance, institutional coordination) and micro (e.g.community participation and financing) that hinder implementation. Using TELEMAC-2D hydrological modelling, the study assesses the flood mitigation potential of different NbS scenarios, which demonstrate that integrated interventions combining river restoration and wetland creation significantly reduce peak flows in both short and long duration storms. Additionally, stakeholder surveys and workshops highlight governance fragmentation, financial constraints, and limited public awareness as key impediments to scaling NbS. Building on these findings, the paper proposes strategic, multi-scalar pathways to overcome these barriers, including policy mainstreaming, participatory governance, innovative financing mechanisms, and integrated monitoring frameworks. By combining localized insights with global best practices, the paper provides insights for scaling NbS across diff erent urban contexts in SSA, closing the gap between concept and implementation. The paper concludes with a call for policymakers and stakeholders to prioritize NbS as a transformative approach to urban resilience, climate adaptation, and inclusive sustainable development in the region.

The conceptual quantitative assessment framework for Nature-based Solutions (NbS)

Financing climate adaptation in Flemish cities: Unpacking financial strategies and policy dynamics for nature-based solutions

This study presents insights from the EU Biodiversa+ NatureScape project (2025–2028). The project offers a new perspective for understanding nature-based solutions (NBS) in cities by focusing on the post-implementation phase, in which environmental justice in urban planning is put to the test.In recent years, cities have increasingly pursued NBS in urban development projects such as community gardens, green roofs, and temporary green spaces to support biodiversity while simultaneously improving human well-being. Despite growing recognition of NBS in urban planning, their potential for cities' socio-ecological transformation remains constrained by overlooked post-implementation challenges. While the planning and implementation of NBS already receive considerable attention, critical dimensions of environmental justice – distributive equity, accessibility, and procedural justice for continuous public participation and stakeholder engagement – become apparent only in the post-implementation phase. This phase is characterized by dynamic interactions between social and ecological components, shaping whether NBS are consolidated and sustained in ways that contribute in the long term to transformative effects and environmental justice, or whether they instead undermine these aims.NatureScape addresses this critical transition and its challenges in urban planning. Through transformation laboratories (T-Labs) in seven cities (Oslo, Dublin, Riga, Milan, Lisbon, Lublin, and St. Gallen), the research team explores two central questions: (1) What enablers and barriers in urban planning shape the post-implementation stewardship of urban NBS? (2) What governance mechanisms, strategies, and measures lead to the successful integration of urban NBS into urban planning to unfold their transformative potential for biodiversity-positive transitions and environmental justice?Initial findings from the T-Labs reveal crucial barriers. The post-implementation phase is often reduced to technical maintenance. Insufficient incorporation of NBS into urban planning is associated with fragmented institutions and responsibilities, weak strategic and instrumental anchoring, financial insecurity, and the erosion of institutional and political support.The project identifies interconnected governance mechanisms that could successfully integrate NBS into urban planning: adaptive planning processes, institutional anchoring that fosters shared ownership among stakeholders, co-management approaches with formal agreements, public planning frameworks, and institutional structures that support integrated action. Together, these mechanisms highlight stewardship as a pivotal principle for achieving just and biodiversity-positive urban futures.

Introduction: Eye gaze tracking is essential in understanding non verbal communication, human-computer interaction and cognitive responses. Its applications range from healthcare to consumer behaviour analysis and gaming. The evolution of eye gaze tracking technology and its increasing adoption highlight its significance across diverse domains. Aim: To conduct a bibliometric analysis of eye gaze tracking research over the past two decades (2005-2024), exploring publication trends, collaboration patterns, key contributors and emerging research themes. Materials and Methods: The present review was a bibliometric review in which data were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection, amounting to 9,773 peer-reviewed articles. The bibliometric analysis tools used were VOSviewer and Biblioshiny for the investigation of co-authorship, citation and co-occurrence network analysis. The critical conceptual and intellectual trends in research on eye gaze tracking were identified, focusing on publication output and global collaborations in research. Results: Findings showed that more than 62% of publications were published within the period 2018-2024. The United States of America (USA) accounted for the majority of research contributions, followed by England and Germany. Applications in healthcare, marketing and cognitive sciences were evident, with “autism” being a focus of critical importance. Conclusion: Eye gaze tracking has seen rapid growth since 2018, with an increasing focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI)- assisted applications in healthcare, assistive technology and marketing. Emerging trends such as deep learning-based eye movement prediction and gaze-driven user experiences are shaping future developments. Upcoming research is expected to integrate AI, neuroscience and human-computer interaction to advance diagnostics and gaze-based security solutions.

Mainstreaming Nature-based Solutions (NbS) is vital to translating the EU Water Resilience Strategy (2025) into meaningful action. Yet, bridging the gap between policy design and practical implementation requires not only technical and financial alignment, but also broad social acceptance and participatory governance.The NbS Fresco©, supported by the Horizon Europe project NBRACER (n°101112836), emerges as an innovative tool designed to foster this social dimension by raising awareness and engagement around NbS. Inspired by the successful Climate Fresk, the NbS Fresco© builds on proven approaches that use visual storytelling and collaborative learning to make complex scientific knowledge accessible and emotionally resonant. Research shows that traditional environmental communication often fails to engage the public effectively because scientific concepts are presented as isolated facts with limited context. Storytelling helps connect logic with emotion, enhances trust, improves information retention, and motivates action.The NbS Fresco©’s scope currently focuses on three landscapes (urban, rural, and coastal/marine) and the set of 22 NbS covered in the first version of this serious game addresses a variety of water resilience-related solutions. Through a visual, interactive, and collective narrative experience, the Fresco transforms the complex, interdisciplinary science of NbS into an engaging format that empowers participants to understand the systems behind them, recognize their benefits, and build hope and connection to nature. While not a practical training on NbS implementation, the Fresco’s strength lies in fostering social acceptance and stakeholder buy-in, both critical factors for mainstreaming NbS in integrated water management.Citizen engagement approaches exemplified by the Fresco contribute to integrated governance by democratizing knowledge, encouraging shared learning, and supporting adaptive management through increased awareness. This participatory dimension is essential to aligning societal values with the EU’s water resilience goals and advancing NbS as viable, complementary alternatives to grey infrastructure.This presentation will introduce and discuss the NbS Fresco©’s potential as a scalable, agile tool to close the implementation gap by building collective intelligence and fostering inclusive dialogue. It underscores the importance of innovative engagement methods in complementing scientific evidence and policy frameworks to accelerate NbS adoption, thereby enhancing water resilience and socio-ecological sustainability across Europe.

Increasing urbanization and climate change challenges are leading to relevant environmental, economic and social pressures on European cities. These include increasing flood hazards and the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are increasingly recognized within strategies to provide multiple ecosystem services to mitigate existing risks and pressures, as well as to make cities more resilient and livable. Although being increasingly addressed within the literature, NBS implementation on the ground still faces many technical and financial barriers. This paper aims to test the potential of selected NBS in mitigating the effects of identified climate change risks, i.e., the UHI effect and urban floods, in the Turin urban area (north-western Italy). Four different intervention NBS-based scenarios are developed. The supply of ecosystem services by NBS in each scenario is assessed using InVEST models and the effectiveness of NBS investments is analyzed by calculating and comparing the associated costs and benefits. Different results in terms of effectiveness and economic viability are observed for each scenario and each NBS. Flood risk mitigation oriented NBS seem to have the most impact, in particular forested green areas and retention ponds. The results are relevant to suggest policy mix strategies to embed NBS in city planning.

To address challenges associated with climate resilience, health and well-being in urban areas, current policy platforms are shifting their focus from ecosystem-based to nature-based solutions (NBS), broadly defined as solutions to societal challenges that are inspired and supported by nature. NBS result in the provision of co-benefits, such as the improvement of place attractiveness, of health and quality of life, and creation of green jobs. Few frameworks exist for acknowledging and assessing the value of such co-benefits of NBS and to guide cross-sectoral project and policy design and implementation. In this paper, we firstly developed a holistic framework for assessing co-benefits (and costs) of NBS across elements of socio-cultural and socio-economic systems, biodiversity, ecosystems and climate. The framework was guided by a review of over 1700 documents from science and practice within and across 10 societal challenges relevant to cities globally. We found that NBS can have environmental, social and economic co-benefits and/or costs both within and across these 10 societal challenges. On that base, we develop and propose a seven-stage process for situating co-benefit assessment within policy and project implementation. The seven stages include: 1) identify problem or opportunity; 2) select and assess NBS and related actions; 3) design NBS implementation processes; 4) implement NBS; 5) frequently engage stakeholders and communicate co-benefits; 6) transfer and upscale NBS; and 7) monitor and evaluate co-benefits across all stages. We conclude that the developed framework together with the seven-stage co-benefit assessment process represent a valuable tool for guiding thinking and identifying the multiple values of NBS implementation.