
Context
As the field of research on green infrastructure and nature-based solutions in cities expands, the potential of urban agriculture in the production of ecosystem services remains unexplored. Beyond the benefits of increasing food supply and reducing the vulnerability of urban populations, urban food systems can be at the heart of policies to develop nature-based solutions. This project studies the potential benefits of these systems in the perimeter of Bengaluru, an Indian city with a strong heritage in terms of urban agriculture.
This project is part of the ECOPRONAT research programme, which supports research on how to better take into account biodiversity and mainstream it into key economic sectors.
Objectives
Taking the case study of Bengaluru, this project led by IIHS explores how and why urban food systems, in rapidly developing urban and peri-urban areas, can be seen as nature-based urban solutions that bring benefits to ecosystems and society.
Two research questions are addressed:
- What is the scope and outcomes of urban agriculture for ecosystem services (including pollination) and societal well-being (such as food and nutritional security of the most vulnerable populations)?
- How can we use different co-production pathways across the science-policy-citizen interface to scale up NBS around sustainable urban agricultural practices?
Method
The research methodology is based on three main work packages:
- Synthesis of scientific knowledge on the potential of NBS and existing practices at various scales, and particularly within a chosen ward of Bengaluru with the deployment of pilot interventions;
- Incubation and capacity building: incubating novel NBS ideas and experiments related to pollinator friendly and water conserving urban agriculture, and capacity building through the training of various stakeholder groups;
- Scaling impact by identifying and engaging with different stakeholders, including city-level policy and decision makers, right from the start of the project to ensure the scaling of impact throughout the project.
Results
The expected results of these projects are:
- Academic results on sustainable urban food systems in the context of rapidly urbanizing countries from the Global South, on urban NBS experiences and their effects on ecosystem services (including pollination);
- Knowledge outputs for urban decision-makers on the integration of NBS in urban planning;
- Capacity building and teaching materials on multidisciplinary approaches to urban sustainability.
The project is also testing nature-based solutions aimed at strengthening the resilience of food systems in Bangalore.
An example: the PLUME project
Supported by the IIHS, the PLUME (Pollinator Linked Urban Multifunctional Ecosystems) project is developing pollinator-friendly food gardens in private and public spaces, installing infrastructure such as bee hotels, and raising public awareness of the importance of biodiversity for urban agriculture. The project team has designed a ‘PLUME toolkit’ containing seeds of local species and the appropriate equipment for sowing them, as well as educational tools and a website.
By testing nature-based solutions, PLUME is the action research component of the research carried out by the IIHS on the greening of urban food systems as part of the Ecopronat research programme. It demonstrates how sustainable agricultural practices can be integrated into cities while enhancing biodiversity and citizen involvement through a research-action approach.
Research findings
The research team aims to show how nature-based solutions (NbS) can address urban water security challenges in the Global South — a topic that remains underexplored in the scientific literature, which is still largely focused on the Global North. Drawing on expert discussions and a literature review, they identify the specific characteristics of these contexts (environmental, socio-economic, governance-related, technical capacity, etc.), as well as the barriers and opportunities for implementing these solutions. The goal is to propose concrete avenues to support the more effective and equitable adoption of NbS in cities of the Global South.
Read the research paper
Other projects on Nature-based Solutions supported by ECOPRONAT


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Context
Uganda’s wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems (in terms of ecosystem services) in East Africa. In addition to their ecological functions, they provide more than 50% of the monthly income of the populations that depend on them. However, the rate of wetland degradation is over 70 times the rate of their restoration. Artificialization and urban growth, informal settlements, agricultural activities, pollution or illegal mining of sand and clay: all of these causes contribute to the degradation of these ecosystems.
To address this challenge, many restoration projects have already been carried out in Uganda, and the knowledge available on the country’s wetlands is important. Strengthening the links between research and policy implementation is therefore essential to facilitate and improve the extension of sustainable wetland restoration in Uganda.
This project is part of the ECOPRONAT research programme, which supports research on how to better take into account biodiversity and mainstream it into key economic sectors.
Goal
Based on two case studies, this project aims to facilitate and enhance the upscale of sustainable wetland restoration in Uganda:
- Identification of institutional and socio-economic constraints on restoration projects, including available research and lessons learned from Uganda;
- Analysis of the effects of restoration projects on natural ecosystems and their sustainability;
- Development of tools to support decision-making;
- Capacity building of key actors in wetland restoration and management.
The IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, in partnership with Makerere University, the Ministry of Water and Environment of Uganda and the NGO NatureUganda, is mobilizing its 20 years of experience in wetland research in Uganda to address these issues.
Method
This project draws on the analysis of two Ugandan wetlands – Lubigi and Rufuha, one urban and one rural – and focuses on several research questions to achieve its objectives:
- Understand issues of wetlands and synthesize knowledge and practices of wetland restoration;
- Characterize institutions, governance and development process of wetland restoration;
- Analyse the participation of local communities in wetland restoration and assess the economic contribution of these ecosystems to household incomes;
- Assess the impact of restoration on wetland biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services;
- Develop and test an indicator framework for wetland restoration monitoring and develop decision-making tools.
Strengthening the capacity of the implementing agencies for restoration management, in particular by communicating the results of the project to public actors, is also a key axis of the methodology of this project.
Results
This research process should result in the production of scientific analysis reports on constraints and issues related to wetland restoration projects. Policy notes and knowledge products on the monitoring, evaluation and deployment of ecological restoration of wetlands are also expected.
A Research Conversations webinar was organized in September 2024 to present and discuss the results of the research project.
Watch the replay: Restoring wetlands in Uganda: An integrated approach for sustainable solutions?
Contact:
- Julien Calas, research officer at AFD

Context
Public actors need to monitor the state of the environment in order to assess the effectiveness of their actions, prioritize management policies and measures, and thus objectively establish their contribution to the conservation of natural capital. To do so, they must be able to rely on science-based standards to identify the thresholds at which environmental functions can be considered sustainable.
The ESGAP (Environmental Sustainability Gap) is an innovative tool for assessing the condition of a territory’s environmental functions and how sustainable they are. For all critical components of natural capital in the territory concerned (air or water quality, pollution, forest resources, fisheries, etc.), this indicator calculates the difference between their current state and a state that would be sustainable (i.e., a state compatible with the sustainable functioning of the processes necessary for the preservation of life, human activities and well-being). This allows for the calculation of the “environmental sustainability gap”, which highlights the path to environmental sustainability. This can then serve as a guide for public policies to estimate and preserve the critical functions of the natural capital of a given territory. ESGAP has already been tested in New Caledonia, Kenya and Vietnam.
Within the framework of the ECOPRONAT research programme, AFD aims to develop methodologies for assessing strong sustainability, that is, adopting demanding criteria concerning the non-substituability of natural capital by other forms of capital (physical among others) in a territory or country. AFD also wants to promote their use in international frameworks and contribute to emerging international standards on the good ecological state of ecosystems.
Find out more about ECOPRONAT
Goal
The ESGAP pilot project recently conducted in Vietnam made it possible to measure the state of the environmental functions of this country. It identified fisheries resources, soil erosion, air and water pollution as the most degraded dimensions.
It appears that some economic activities can put pressure on these different environmental functions, while other activities depend on their proper functioning. Developing the ESGAP framework is necessary to go further, by integrating the linkages that exist between the economy and the environment and identifying which human activities are concerned.
In order to do this, the research team will try to link ESGAP measures to socio-economic activities and build a monetary ESGAP. The aim will be to assess the physical risks associated with certain economic activities on the basis of scenarios of environmental pressures (such as the breakdown of supply of certain essential environmental services, for example in agriculture). The development of these new applications of the ESGAP framework aims to guide policy makers in designing more sustainable development paths.
Method
The research project will be conducted in two phases:
- The first step will consist in building a “monetary” ESGAP that measures the cost (expressed in monetary units) needed to achieve a sustainable environmental state. This cost is considered an unpaid ecological debt: it corresponds to the cost of effective measures that society would have to spend to achieve a good ecological state. It will be calculated as an abatement cost, that is, the expenditure necessary for human activities (such as production and consumption) in Vietnam to reduce their environmental pressures to a level that does not result in degradation of natural capital (or to an acceptable level, considering the good condition standards considered by the ESGAP).
- The second phase will use the modeling framework developed in the first phase, and assess how different public policies can improve Vietnam’s environmental sustainability by 2035, as well as mitigate the economic risks associated with the loss of the country’s natural capital. First, the team will develop scenarios to determine which interventions can improve Vietnam’s ecological status. Secondly, it will assess the extent to which economic risks related to biodiversity (due to the dependence of the Vietnamese economy on ecosystem services) can be mitigated through these interventions.
Since this study is considered experimental research, the different elements outlined in the research proposal and intermediate results may be adjusted throughout the study based on different factors – such as access to data, data quality, difficulties in implementing certain aspects of the methodology, or unsustainable or misleading results.
Results
The team will produce a synthesis of the study, that will be used as a working document for communication purposes. The final deliverable will outline the methodology, database used and main results of the monetary ESGAP applied in Vietnam and the physical risk assessment methodology for the Vietnamese economy. This final deliverable will explore the relevance of ESGAP for the implementation of public policies aimed at achieving a good state of environmental conditions and future research pathways to link ESGAP measures to socio-economic activities.
Contact:
- Oskar Lecuyer, research officer, AFD