Urban Resilience and Adaptation through Nature-Based Infrastructure: The Role of Peri-Urban Wetlands in a Warming City

Urban resilience and adaptation are critical for rapidly expanding peri-urban regions, which face intersecting pressures from land use transformation and climate variability. The proliferation of impervious surfaces, loss of ecological buffers, and mounting anthropogenic emissions collectively undermine adaptive capacity by intensifying heat stress in cities. Advancing resilience requires a shift from conventional grey infrastructure to ecosystem-based strategies that can dynamically respond to environmental stressors.

This research evaluates the contribution of peri-urban wetlands to urban resilience and climate adaptation with special reference to heat stress. Focusing on the rapidly urbanizing landscape of Barasat, West Bengal, India, the analysis investigates the long-term land-use and land-cover (LULC) transitions from 1995 to 2025 and their implications for microclimatic regulation and environmental stability. Multi-temporal satellite data were employed to quantify changes in wetland extent, vegetation cover, and built-up expansion. These LULC dynamics were then correlated with key environmental indicators, including land surface temperature (LST) and air quality parameters.

The analysis reveals a significant decline in wetland and vegetated areas, which corresponds directly with elevated thermal intensity and diminished environmental buffering capacity. This quantifiable degradation signals a marked erosion of the region's urban adaptive capacity. Wetlands function as natural regulators by dissipating heat, retaining stormwater, and improving atmospheric conditions—ecosystem services that are fundamental to mitigating climate extremes. Their degradation, therefore, constitutes not only an ecological loss but also a systemic decline in urban living conditions.

The study concludes by advocating for the strategic positioning of wetlands as adaptive, nature-based infrastructure within urban resilience and adaptation frameworks. Integrating wetland restoration, protection, and continuous environmental monitoring through participatory governance can forge robust climate adaptation pathways. By embedding these ecosystems into Blue–Green Infrastructure networks, rapidly urbanizing cities can transition toward more resilient, climate-responsive, and sustainable development models.