Diagnosing delivery capabilities on a large international nature-based solutions project

Abstract Nature-based solutions (NBS) are increasingly at the centre of urban strategies to mitigate heatwaves and flooding, improve public health restore biodiversity. However, on-ground implementation has been slow, inconsistent often limited demonstration sites. A broad literature consistently highlights institutional barriers as a major reason for observed gap. In this study, we developed deployed an assessment tool identify NBS delivery on European Commission Horizon 2020 project spanning seven cities. We found that practitioners were effectively navigating challenges in areas where they had significant control, including community engagement, strategy development technical skills. The greatest outside influence teams: understaffing, lack intra-organisational processes, risk-averse organisational cultures. These findings emphasise after cities embrace strategic political level, it is vital executives follow through with necessary pragmatic reforms enable delivery.