ABSTRACT
Cities and metropolitan areas are becoming increasingly vulnerable to various environmental and socio-economic disturbances, posing a growing concern to food security, public health and well-being. This chapter intends to address two concepts that have only recently been addressed together – urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPUA) and nature-based solutions (NbS) – through their potential to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic associated challenges in Bucharest Metropolitan Area. The work relies on statistical and spatial data related to UPUA as NbS initiatives, being identified two main types: bottom-up (e.g. community, private companies, or NGOs) and top-down (from the local authorities). Lessons learnt from experimenting with NBS during the pandemic period can be relevant for urban governance to further innovate and replicate the successful initiatives. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.