The potential of urban nature-based solutions to improve public health outcomes through reduced biological hazard

Rapidly developing cities of the Global South face complex challenges, among these is keeping their populations healthy. As we have seen from COVID-19, highly dense and unplanned settlements made social distancing difficult and left many urban dwellers without access to essential services such as water and sanitation.

While nature-based solutions (NBS) continue to receive strong global attention and investment due to their capacity to support multi-functional goals, including climate adaptation and ecosystems health, little attention has been paid to the potential of NBS to tackle infectious diseases such as water-borne and vector-borne diseases.

Responding to this knowledge gap, in partnership with Youth Innovation Lab, Nepal, this SEI project builds on the recently completed Building Resilience through Inclusive and Climate-Adaptive Disaster Risk Reduction in Asia-Pacific program, focusing on the city of Bharatpur, Nepal to examine the potential of NBS to reduce biological hazard and improve public health outcomes while creating more liveable and climate-resilient cities.