Published by CSTEP, CSTEP’s Urban Greenprints represents a timely intervention into the discourse on climate resilience in urban coastal zones. The report identifies Nature-based Solutions (NbS) as viable alternatives to traditional grey infrastructure in Indian cities like Chennai and Mangaluru, which are increasingly prone to flooding by the day, facing biodiversity loss by the day , and dealing with heat extremes by the minute. Amid intensifying climate threats and the inadequacy of built infrastructure, this study situates NbS not just as ecological enhancements but as core adaptive infrastructure.

In the already existing climate discourse, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have often been mischaracterised as peripheral or ornamental, be it green spaces for aesthetic relief, biodiversity havens, or passive ecosystem buffers. But as the climate crisis intensifies and overwhelms traditional urban infrastructure, NbS are no longer luxuries. They are adaptive infrastructure: spatially embedded, economically viable, and systemically critical. It is beyond aesthetics and more of legit infrastructure. Sp, what defines "infrastructure"? Conventionally, it is rigid, engineered, and concrete; say drainage systems, roads, bridges. But infrastructure is fundamentally any network that enables a city to function, adapt, and thrive. By this broader and truer definition, wetlands that absorb monsoon surges, green roofs that regulate heat, and permeable pavements that manage stormwater all qualify as essential systems.

CSTEP’s report underscores this redefinition by quantifying the benefits of NbS in financial, hydrological, and spatial terms. For instance, green roofs and urban wetlands in Chennai could not only increase vegetative cover by over 75% but also prevent crores in flood damage annually, with a payback period of just four years. These are not fringe benefits. They are core urban services.

Using detailed ward-level analysis across two coastal cities, Urban Greenprints does not romanticise nature. It treats NbS with the same analytical lens as conventional infrastructure, thus examining cost, spatial footprint, efficacy, and maintenance. Take permeable pavements for example which often dismissed as secondary. In the study, they show measurable improvements in stormwater management, and when integrated across networks, they form distributed systems of urban drainage. Similarly, rooftop greening becomes not just a climate mitigation measure, but a cooling infrastructure that mitigates urban heat islands and that is vital in Indian coastal cities where heat stress and energy insecurity are converging threats. One of the most significant contributions of the report is its insistence on economic valuation of nature’s work. By calculating avoided flood damage and heat stress costs, the study builds a solid case for municipal investment in NbS; and not just as environmental ethics, but as fiscal responsibility. Cities routinely allocate budgets for road repairs and canal desilting. What CSTEP proposes is a budget line for wetland restoration and green corridors, not as greenwashing, but as return-generating assets with multi-functional roles.

Urban nature must no longer sit in the "open space" section of master plans; it must appear in the same chapters as utilities and transportation- that is the conclusion line we can draw.