Urban Forests as Nature-Based Solutions: a Comprehensive Overview of the National Forest City Action in China

IF 9 1区 农林科学 Q1 FORESTRY
Cheng Wang, Jiali Jin, Clive Davies, Wendy Y. Chen
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

In tandem with China’s rapid urbanisation and economic growth, some negative impacts on the eco-environment and human wellbeing have arisen, such as the urban heat island effect, air pollution and lack of recreational spaces. To address the degradation of urban eco-environment and improve residents’ quality of life simultaneously, China’s central government launched the National Forest City action in 2004, which essentially promotes urban forests as nature-based solutions (UF-NBS) and contributes to achieving sustainable development goals. Whilst this key national action has been implemented for about two decades, it has received limited scholarly attention within and beyond China. This paper is the very first to summarise comprehensively the development of the action, focusing on its rationale, evaluation and management.

Recent Findings

By establishing urban forests as cost-effective solutions to various environmental and social issues, the action integrates novel knowledge and best practices accumulated in Europe and North America into China’s traditional ideology, pertinent to the human-nature relationship in urban landscape design, and further adapts and renovates these to the country’s unique socioeconomic context. It highlights the multi-functionality of urban forests underpinned by a set of key performance indicators covering both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the National Forest City’s planning, construction, management and review. Additionally, it reflects a dynamic interaction within the science-policy-practice continuum hinged on field experiments, knowledge transfer, public engagement, policy agenda and greening actions. Challenges, such as unbalanced geographical distribution and KPIs on ecological integrity and functionality of urban forests, should be addressed for further refining and scaling-up this action.

Summary

China’s National Forest City action promotes UF-NBS as a pathway to sustainable urbanisation, serving as a demonstrative exemplar for other developing and developed countries that may wish to avoid their dependence on traditional development pathways. This paper sheds light on how to implement urban forests as effective and sustainable NBS to addresses global societal challenges.

城市森林作为基于自然的解决方案:中国国家森林城市行动综述
综述目的随着中国城市化进程的加快和经济的发展,城市热岛效应、空气污染和休闲空间不足等对生态环境和人类福祉产生了一些负面影响。为解决城市生态环境恶化问题,同时提高居民生活质量,中国中央政府于 2004 年启动了 "国家森林城市行动",该行动主要是推广城市森林作为基于自然的解决方案(UF-NBS),为实现可持续发展目标做出贡献。尽管这项重要的国家行动已经实施了约二十年,但在中国国内外受到的学术关注却十分有限。通过将城市森林作为解决各种环境和社会问题的具有成本效益的方案,该行动将欧洲和北美积累的新知识和最佳实践融入中国的传统意识形态,与城市景观设计中的人与自然关系相关,并根据中国独特的社会经济背景对其进行了进一步的调整和创新。它强调了城市森林的多功能性,并以一系列关键绩效指标为基础,涵盖了国家森林城市规划、建设、管理和审查的定性和定量方面。此外,它还反映了科学-政策-实践连续体中的动态互动,其核心是实地实验、知识转让、公众参与、政策议程和绿化行动。为进一步完善和扩大这一行动,应解决一些挑战,如不平衡的地理分布以及城市森林生态完整性和功能性的关键绩效指标。本文揭示了如何将城市森林作为有效和可持续的国家森林战略来实施,以应对全球社会挑战。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Current Forestry Reports
Current Forestry Reports Agricultural and Biological Sciences-Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
CiteScore
15.90
自引率
2.10%
发文量
22
期刊介绍: Current Forestry Reports features in-depth review articles written by global experts on significant advancements in forestry. Its goal is to provide clear, insightful, and balanced contributions that highlight and summarize important topics for forestry researchers and managers. To achieve this, the journal appoints international authorities as Section Editors in various key subject areas like physiological processes, tree genetics, forest management, remote sensing, and wood structure and function. These Section Editors select topics for which leading experts contribute comprehensive review articles that focus on new developments and recently published papers of great importance. Moreover, an international Editorial Board evaluates the yearly table of contents, suggests articles of special interest to their specific country or region, and ensures that the topics are up-to-date and include emerging research.
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