Making nature based solutions work in a 50°C world

Under climate warming scenarios, several of the world’s cities will soon exceed 50°C days. Extreme temperature and drought could fail the very functions, communities and organisms that underpin Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs), thus affecting their performance, reliability and sustainability. Modern NBSs might be ultimately impacted by the same climatic factors they hope to mitigate. Here, we discuss critical issues related to designing, building and managing NBSs in heat- and drought-stricken cities. Selected examples from Australian cities, currently sitting at the global forefront of observed and predicted climatic changes, will be highlighted to advance a framework for “climate-ready NBSs”.