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Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are growing in popularity to mitigate and adapt to climate change, enhance biodiversity, and secure human well-being. However, the emergence of NBS has not generated equal attention for all ecosystems. One such neglected ecosystem are ponds and pondscapes (i.e. groups of ponds in a landscape), which are deteriorating in quality and diminishing in quantity. As the European Union (EU) is regarded as influential in the conceptualisation and operationalisation of NBS, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of 38 EU policies to identify opportunities and limitations for the implementation of ponds and pondscapes as NBS. We focus our analysis on ponds and pondscapes, but their prevalence in different landscapes and their multitude of benefits allows us to also make some inferences about the implications of the EU policy context for NBS at large. We find that EU policies strengthen NBS linked to existing and potential Natura 2000 sites, as well as to ecosystems protected through the EU's Birds and Habitats Directives and Water Framework Directive. However, if ecosystems fall outside of these already established policies - as is the case with the vast majority of ponds and pondscapes - their implementation as NBS may be hampered. We also find that the EU emphasises natural water retention measures and carbon-rich ecosystems for climate change adaptation and mitigation, but mostly does not explicitly include ponds and pondscapes despite their potential contributions. Other findings are that the EU's Horizon Europe research policy will likely influence which ecosystems will be used and financed as NBS, while the exact ambition and selection of NBS rests with lower-level authorities or individuals. Therefore, further studies tracing the impact of the supra-national EU policy framework at lower governance levels are vital.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are increasingly suggested to address biodiversity decline and climate change. However, many ecosystems are hardly used as NBS, including ponds and pondscapes. We therefore examine how policies and practices affect their implementation as NBS. Using a content analysis of policy documents and stakeholder inputs, we assess the policy context in eight countries but also zoom in on policies and practices in seventeen pondscapes. We derive three key insights: first, a protective status for a pond or pondscape interlinks with other enabling factors for NBS implementation, and protection and conservation should therefore be considered more often as NBS. Second, there is a shortage of, especially long-term, financing. Third, local leadership should be nurtured to overcome a lack of institutional cooperation and stakeholder awareness as well as fragmented land ownership. Beyond that, we show that implementation barriers interlink and interventions should therefore address several barriers simultaneously.

Low-carbon transitions are essential but contested, particularly regarding what constitutes a ‘just transition’. To grasp their political nature, adopting a spatial perspective becomes indispensable, as different actors hold different views on how to allocate burdens and benefits across scales. In this study, we examine how notions of ‘justice’ are expressed and manifested spatially, negotiated between conflicting parties, and undergo changes, delving into the conflict surrounding an electric vehicle (EV) factory near Berlin, Germany. To do so, we leverage the theoretical lens of ‘hydrosocial territories’. This framework helps to understand how beliefs about desirable societal development (‘imaginaries’) interlink with actors’ perceptions of just distribution of water-related benefits and burdens, as well as decision-making power across spatial scales. We identify one territory supporting the factory and two counter-territories challenging its legitimacy. Actors of one counter-territory question the net benefit for in situ communities due to water challenges, while the other casts doubt on the legitimacy of the capitalist systems as such and considers the EV technology and its supply chains exemplary of exploitative relations in the water sector. We derive three key insights for the conceptualisation of ‘justice’: Firstly, divergence in the underlying values of desired societal development and the spatial scales at which transitions are conceptualised can affect the possibilities for compromise. Secondly, justice, as viewed by actors negotiating transitions, requires continuous reassessment due to its fluid nature. Thirdly, localities where low-carbon transitions occur are perceived at multiple spatial scales simultaneously, adding complexity to how actors understand justice. Our research holds value for the study of low-carbon transitions, illuminating the complexity, spatiality, and fluidity of justice and offering a heuristic device to capture it.

This study explores the production of coherence between Uruguay’s agricultural, environmental and water policies amidst growing tensions, which are particularly manifested in conflicts between an expanding agricultural sector and water insecurity for the broader public. We apply a novel mixed-method approach, combining a political discourse analysis of key sectoral policies, the ruling party’s programme and workshop discussions with a survey of implementing technical staff, thus capturing both the discursive nature of coherence and perceptions of its practical implementation - extending thereby beyond instrumental and even existing critical policy coherence analysis frameworks. Our findings reveal divergent views on policy coherence, with agricultural sector staff generally viewing it more positively than their counterparts in the environmental and water sectors. We also identified two distinct discourses: the hegemonic discourse, which promotes agricultural growth with minimal environmental safeguards, and the counter-hegemonic discourse, which advocates for a cultural shift that challenges the capitalist structures underpinning large-scale agriculture. Our study highlights how prevailing discourses shape both the perception and practice of policy coherence. However, we also found that vagueness in policy objectives and instruments allow powerful actors to maintain the status quo, making policy objectives appear coherent while diverging from the discursive ideals of a strong sustainability in practice. The gap between discursive ideals and real-world outcomes illustrates that coherence, to a degree, is a choice shaped and limited by power dynamics and institutional capacities. Overall, our approach and findings bear relevance for an ever-increasing number of contexts in which economic and environmental priorities intersect and compete.