Supporting decision-making for nature recovery through urban development – A map of sustainable spatial development tools

Urban development is at the forefront of global priorities due to its former and continued impact on the natural environment, and its role as the key experiential interface between human and wildlife communities. To address the negative impacts of urban development on the natural environment, nature-positive development has been promoted as an alternative approach that seeks to regenerate and enhance nature. Numerous practice-based tools have emerged to support assessment of nature-based solutions' impacts within spatial planning and development, tools that in this study have been termed Sustainable Spatial Development Tools (SSDTs). However, research has identified challenges in the application of SSDTs, particularly in enabling comprehensive assessments and alignment with user needs and capacities. These challenges raise the risk of continued degradation of nature as part of development. Following a practitioner survey to scope the most commonly used SSDTs in a UK context, a systematic mapping approach was used to review academic literature, grey literature, and tool user/technical guides. Data on SSDTs used in the UK were critically compared against nature-based solutions societal challenge themes, trade-off strategies and requirement/recognition in planning, and the tools’ strengths and limitations. Compared to previous knowledge, this paper adopts a practitioner-led approach to evaluate various tools used to inform nature recovery, and summarises the findings in relation to how the outcomes can be optimised for the strategy, planning, and delivery of urban renaturing. The evaluation uncovered new insights for decision-making, enabling practitioners to consider various aspects of sustainable development principles. This included how the multiple considerations and variety of evidence required for each tool can lead to diverse actualised outcomes for nature. Synthesised analysis also revealed that while SSDTs included approaches for calculating broad nature-based solution benefits and supporting nature-positive development, most were poor at estimating socio-economic outcomes of nature-positive urban planning. The novel map of SSDTs produced in this paper supports practitioners in navigating the benefits and barriers of SSDTs to select tools for comprehensive deliberation in urban nature-positive development, including assisting them in identifying the most appropriate tool(s), and combining tools effectively, for different planning and development contexts. Future research into their practical application requires empirical investigation into users’ experience of SSDTs’ strengths, weaknesses, and complementarity. The understanding provided is vital in supporting practitioners to deliver on the global mandate for nature-positive development.