Publications

Abstract As calls grow for relational approaches to nature and wellbeing research that consider reciprocity in human‐environment interactions, the concept of affordances is gaining importance as a useful way of thinking about nature experiences. Affordances provide a framework to enable individualised conceptions of nature by focusing on what is functionally meaningful to people. However, affordance thinking is currently limited in its ability to help us understand how peoples' background, culture and circumstances shape interactions with nature ‐ a critical issue with respect to inclusivity and the under‐representation of some sections of society. Bourdieu's theory of practice is a well‐established set of ‘thinking tools’ which potentially help addresses these influences. It examines how our social environment may pattern our practices, attitudes, and perceptions. In this paper, we review the various applications of affordances before providing an overview of how Bourdieu's concepts of habitus , capital and field can complement, and be integrated with, affordance thinking for novel applications to greenspace research. Bridging these areas of thinking will facilitate development of a more intersectional and complete understanding of nature experiences, including the quality and inclusivity of green and natural spaces.

Deforestation is a threat to habitat quality and biodiversity. In intact forests, even small levels of deforestation can have profound consequences for vertebrate biodiversity. The risk hotspots are Borneo, the Central Amazon, and the Congo Basin. Earth observation (EO) now provides regular, high-resolution satellite images from the Copernicus Sentinel missions and other platforms. To assess the impact of forest conversion and forest loss on biodiversity and habitat quality, forest loss in a tiger conservation landscape in Malaysia is analysed using Sentinel-2 imagery and the InVEST habitat quality model. Forest losses are identified from satellites using the random forest classification and validated with PlanetScope imagery at 3–5 m resolution for a test area. Two scenarios are simulated using InVEST, one with and one without the forest loss maps. The outputs of the InVEST model are maps of tiger habitat quality and habitat degradation in northeast Peninsular Malaysia. In addition to forest loss, OpenStreetMap road vectors and the GLC2000 land-cover map are used to model habitat sensitivity to threats from roads, railways, water bodies, and urban areas. The landscape biodiversity score simulation results fall sharply from ~0.8 to ~0.2 for tree-covered land cover when forest loss is included in the habitat quality model. InVEST makes a reasonable assumption that species richness is higher in pristine tropical forests than in agricultural landscapes. The landscape biodiversity score is used to compare habitat quality between administrative areas. The coupled EO/InVEST modelling framework presented here can support decision makers in reaching the targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Forest loss information is essential for the quantification of habitat quality and biodiversity in tropical forests. Next generation ecosystem service models should be co-developed alongside EO products to ensure interoperability.

Green and blue infrastructure (GBI) is emerging as a key strategy for climate adaptation and urban resilience, yet its implementation often faces critical contextual barriers. This review initially screened over 29,000 publications, ultimately synthesizing more than 500 relevant studies supplemented by diverse expert input. The result is a novel integrative framework that connects previously siloed knowledge and consolidates 21 underexplored barriers across four key domains of GBI implementation: environmental, social, economic, and governance/policy. Environmental barriers include conflicts between GBI and renewable energy goals, specifically photovoltaics, unintended consequences of GBI (such as allergenic pollen production), urban ventilation disruption, and vulnerability of plant species to multiple urban stressors. Effective responses include thoughtful allocation and integration of photovoltaics and GBI, developing context-specific frameworks combining ecological knowledge with technological innovation, fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration across technical and social domains, science-based species selection and implementing multi-scalar strategies that enhance ecological connectivity. Social barriers encompass environmental injustice, cultural disconnection, limited public adoption, safety concerns, and esthetic preferences favoring manicured over ecologically functional landscapes. These challenges highlight the need for participatory design, culturally responsive planning, and inclusive resource allocation to strengthen community engagement and long-term stewardship. Economic barriers stem from biodiversity undervaluation, inadequate asset recognition in accounting frameworks, incomplete cost-benefit analyses, and limited private investment. Innovative financing tools such as green bonds and debt-for-nature swaps offer promising mechanisms for resilient financing, while standardized natural capital accounting frameworks can better capture GBI's multifunctional value. Governance barriers include land scarcity, urban design limitations, policy fragmentation, and disconnects with other urban agendas such as walkability. Overcoming these requires institutional realignment, cross-sectoral collaboration, and integrated spatial planning. The review unifies these findings into 12 actionable recommendations to support holistic decision-making, emphasizing that effective GBI implementation demands context-specific strategies combining innovation, inclusive governance, and long-term stewardship to mainstream GBI in sustainable urban development.

“Value” is a multi-faceted concept. Even though we often think of value in terms of ascribing a monetary worth to goods and services, it is a term that relates to a variety of different forms of evidence about how people experience, interpret, and perceive entities such as Nature based Solutions (NBS). More broadly, ‘values’ relating to NBS can reflect principles and moral perspectives on importance and priorities. This document, a key output from REGREEN Task 4.4, brings together the activities from across Work Package 4 “Wellbeing assessments and valuing benefits of nature-based solutions”. The primary objectives of the report are: 1) to summarise the multiple ways in which the health and wellbeing related values of NBS were investigated; 2) to illustrate the benefit of taking these multiple approaches to understanding NBS values; and 3) to present an integrated picture of what was learned. Producing and using different types of evidence of the value of NBS facilitates a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities of their selection, delivery, and reception. The different forms of evidence, individually and in combination, can reveal if and how an NBS action had the intended impact, clarifying who or what benefited, to what degree, and in what ways. A further purpose is that different audiences need, and will respond to, different types of evidence. There are risks to using constrained types of values and evidence in decision making relating to NBS. This includes the potential that decisions are made which fail to achieve optimum benefits, or at worst, could result in severe unintended consequences including wasted resources, or even harm to individuals or communities. Some of the specific methodologies used in WP4 to understand the multiple values of NBS include: · Theory building and complex systems to understand the multiple outcomes, feedback loops, and unexpected consequences of implementation of a specific NBS, street trees. · Ecological momentary assessment of the experiences, behaviours, and moods of people in urban parks in three of the Urban Living Labs. · Photo-elicitation to capture the responses of community groups to green space, specifically street trees. · Deliberative valuation to explore people’s perceptions and preferences regarding ecosystem services and subsequent benefits, and disbenefits of NBS. · Ecosystem service valuation of the public green spaces in Paris in terms of their cooling effect on nearby residents and the associated reduced risk of heat related mortality. Individually, the results of each study carry great meaning, but when considered as a whole, knowledge built from different types of evidence of value have revealed the multifaceted nature of the value of NBS.

The GBNVPD (GIVD-code EU-GB-007) is the new centralised repository for the collection and storage of standardised vegetation plot data in Great Britain and the Crown Dependencies. The initial version of the GBNVPD (v1.0) described in this long database report comprises data from 63 individual sources and contains 277,070 samples from 200,733 plots, with a total of 4,463,300 occurrences of 4,086 accepted taxa (3,464 accepted species), surveyed between 1949 and 2024. Of the 63 constituent datasets 52 are newly submitted to the EVA and 9 to ReSurveyEurope. The database is available under a discretionary mixed-access regime and will be maintained and updated continuously in response to further digitisation of historic paper records, collection of pre-existing digitised survey data, and addition of future survey data. Abbreviations : EVA = European Vegetation Archive; GB = Great Britain; GBNVPD = National Vegetation Plot Database for Great Britain and the Crown Dependencies; NVC = National Vegetation Classification; UKCEH = United Kingdom Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; UKSI = United Kingdom Species Inventory.

Tropical forest ecosystems are hotspots for biodiversity and represent one of the largest terrestrial carbon stocks, making their role in climate change mitigation (CCM) programmes increasingly important (e.g. REDD+). In Latin America these ecosystems suffer from high land use pressures that have resulted in a dramatic biodiversity loss. Little is known about how CCM options may impact on biodiversity and how this in turn may affect ecosystem carbon storage. Within this context, the FP7 ROBIN (Role Of Biodiversity In climate change mitigatioN) project developed a framework for multi-scale integrated analysis of the impacts that land use change may have on the ecological and social-economic processes of these ecosystems. The framework represents a continuous feedback loop in which changes in CCM options modify land use, that results in biodiversity change, affecting ecosystem functions, leading to changes in ecosystem services that affect human outcomes and societal behaviour, and which then affect the main drivers and pressures on biodiversity and ecosystems, and so on. We have constructed an indicator framework that allows to quantify, link and assess these interactions at three spatial scales: regional (Central and South America), national (Bolivia, Brazil, Guyana and Mexico) and sub-national (study sites representing multifunctional landscapes). Indicators are selected through a demand-driven approach, by directing modelling and assessment efforts towards end-user relevant issues using stakeholder participatory processes. Indicator values are grounded on field data, statistics and model outputs. The framework provides a basis for understanding potential tipping points and unexpected consequences that may arise from the implementation of climate change mitigation policies, or management options (e.g. reducing deforestation and burning, or expansion of areas of biofuel crops in illegal areas). An illustrative example, showing how the framework helps to identify the appropriate indicators to synthesise the impacts of afforestation (one of the CCM options) across the ecological and socio-ecological processes and regions is presented

Abstract Habitat creation and restoration schemes on former agricultural soils can be constrained by high residual soil fertility, a weedy seed bank, and a lack of suitable species in the seed rain. Topsoil inversion has been trialled across the United Kingdom as a novel technique to address these constraints. We investigated 15 topsoil inversion sites ranging in age (time since inversion) from 6 months to 5 years. We assessed surface soil fertility compared to adjacent noninverted soil, and vegetation composition with respect to the species introduced at each site. Soil organic matter, total and extractable N and P were lower in topsoil inversion surface soils, demonstrating that topsoil inversion can successfully reduce surface soil fertility prior to habitat creation and restoration. This reduction was maintained over the timescale of this study (5 years). Cornfield annual nurse crops provided instant visual appeal and gave way to grassland species over time. Sown species varied widely in their establishment success, and sowings were more successful than plug plantings. Grasses colonized naturally following sowing forb‐only seed mixes, allowing introduced forbs to establish early on with reduced competition from the seed bank. Plant communities did not yet resemble seminatural communities, but all were in the early stages of community development. Results indicate that topsoil inversion can successfully lower surface soil fertility and reduce competition between sown species and agricultural weeds.