Journal of Environmental Management 310 (2022) 114786 0301-4797/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Exploring urban green packages as part of Nature-based Solutions for climate change adaptation measures in rapidly growing cities of the Global South Eliakira Kisetu Nassary a, * , Bahati Hakimu Msomba b , Wilson Elias Masele c , Patrick Madulu Ndaki c , Caren Anatory Kahangwa d a Department of Soil and Geological Sciences, College of Agriculture, Sokoine University of Agriculture, P. O. Box 3008, Chuo-Kikuu, Morogoro, Tanzania b Sugar Board of Tanzania, P. O. Box 4355, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania c Institute of Resource Assessment, Centre for Climate Change Studies, University of Dar Es Salaam, P. O. Box 35097, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania d The National Environment Management Council (NEMC), P. O. Box 2724, Dodoma, Tanzania A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Ecological services Environmental conservation Gendered ecological services Green spaces ABSTRACT Given a lot of elusive information on the use and implementation of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in the Global South, this review provides a synthesis of the evidence on the: - (1) distribution of urban green technologies in form of arboriculture and urban agriculture as a part of NbS packages for the sustainability of cities against population growth and impact of climate change; and (2) options of integrating and mainstreaming various NbS packages into city development policies, planning processes, and decision-making agendas. The sustainability of urban green as part of NbS packages and the usefulness for improvement of livelihoods is determined by the spatial (geographical location) and temporal (time of action) scales, and socio-ecological and institutional fac- tors. Various NbS packages have shown the ability for use as climate change adaptation measures throughout the world. These functions include protection from soil erosion, protection from inland fooding, buffering natural resources against drier and more variable climates, protection from coastal hazards and sea-level rise, moder- ation of urban heatwaves and effects of heat island, and managing storm-water and fooding in urban areas. Furthermore, the benefts of urban agriculture and arboriculture include use as sources of food and generation of income; improve recreation and social interactions, and the sustainability of biodiversity. They also mitigate the impact of environmental pollution and climate change through reduction of gas emissions and act as carbon sinks. While the starting capital and lack of policy on urban agriculture and arboriculture in many countries, the importance of the industry is inevitably a useful agenda especially in the Global South due to vulnerability to the impact of climate change. This review also suggests the inclusion of all institutions, governments, and relevant stakeholders to emphasize gender sensitization at all levels of planning and decision-making in food production and adaptation measures to climate change. 1. Introduction 1.1. Background information The dwellers in cities worldwide were estimated to be 1.1 billion people by 2021 but the number is expected to double (2.2 billion) (Gulati and Scholtz, 2020), with the total world’s population expected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050 (Nassary et al., 2020). Cities in the Global South are experiencing rapid expansion with the population growth was estimated to be 75% by 2020 throughout all countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania (FAO, 2012; Friend and Moench, 2015; Anaafo and Akolgo, 2018). The signifcant demographic and economic growth in cities coupled with urbanization is high in the Global South compared with the rest of the world but in the absence of proper plan- ning as well as inadequacy of the key services (FAO, 2012; Gulati and Scholtz, 2020; Mabon and Shih, 2021). It signals a big challenge to the growing cities to align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 Agenda of urban * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: keliakira@yahoo.com (E.K. Nassary), hakimubahati@gmail.com (B.H. Msomba), wmasele5@gmail.com (W.E. Masele), patrick_ndaki@yahoo. co.uk (P.M. Ndaki), caren.kahangwa@gmail.com (C.A. Kahangwa). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Environmental Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.114786 Received 23 October 2021; Received in revised form 16 January 2022; Accepted 20 February 2022