Page 43 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 2

Çiğdem Coşkun Hepcan

sectors, contributing to the reduction of poverty (UN, 2019). Additionally,
they increase the property values of their region (Brander and Koetse, 2011;
Bockarjovae et al, 2020).
Nature-based solutions create microclimates, and have a cooling effect,
which dereases the surface temperature in their region by 1-5 °C. This reduces
the amount of energy spent in transport vehicles for heating and cooling.
Additionally, it reduces the vulnerability of urban infrastructure against
extreme heat and thus, decreases maintenance and repair costs.
Integrating nature-based solutions to sustainable rainwater systems
lightens the workload of waste water and filtering systems (Raymond et al,
2017a). Solutions towards preventing river basin overflows and increasing
the water capture capacity of basins may provide over three times as much
benefit as the amount of their costs (Grossmann et al, 2010).
Nature-based solutions can be created in different spatial scales and details
such as basin, city, neighborhood (microbasin) and building by taking local
ecological conditions into account. Although applied in different scales, these
solutions complement each other within the unity of the natural systems, and
contributes to all systems.

3. Nature-based Solutions at the Basin Scale

All natural ecosystems area interrelated and when natural cycles are
disrupted, the operation of systems change completely. Water flow on earth
is regulated by basins and the ecosystems in these basins. Climate change
results in changes in precipitation regime, which has an effect on the water flow
in basins and the ecosystems in these basins. Cities are established on natural
systems. However, during the urbanization process, the gap between city and
nature widens. Based on its geographical location, a city can be situated in
different parts of a basin or within the borders of one or more basins. The
continuity of urban life and urban systems depends on the consistency of the
ecosystem services offered by natural ecosystems in the basin/basins where
the city is located.
Cities are affected by all the changes that take place in the basins they are
linked to. The climatic effects that might emerge in cities or the areas around
the cities that supply them with their resources constitute certain risks. These
climatic effects can be seen on cities, urban residents, natural ecosystems,
cultural assets, cultural infrastructures, economic activities, social systems and
services. For this reason, there are certain nature-based solutions applied
with a holistic approach in forests, water, agricultural and coastal ecosystems

29 Journal of Environment, Urbanization and Climate