• Energy Research

The study advocates for a qualitative research design to address knowledge gaps regarding Collective Energy Initiatives (CEIs), utilising evidence-based research and a maximum variation principle. Focused on EU countries, the study employs desk research and surveys to identify stages of CEI development and explore impactful practices. It examines initiatives aligned with EU Directives and broader energy transition efforts, categorising them by complexity. Through surveys, the study identifies drivers and barriers to coalition phenomena, aiming to enhance understanding of energy policies’ impact. This approach responds to the need for comprehensive investigations into energy initiatives’ impediments and facilitators, aligning with recent calls for research in this area.

Planning for resilient cities requires an evidence-based understanding of flood risk and the involvement of stakeholders and local actors. The paper addresses research developed within the URCA!—Urban Resilience to Climate Change: to activate the participatory mapping and decision support tool for enhancing sustainable urban drainage—project. A top-down/bottom-up participatory and flexible methodology for the conception of participatory mapping aimed at the planning and installation of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) on the territory is then developed. The innovative methodology is applied and tested in the case study of the Sampierdarena district in Genoa, northern Italy. This research paper illustrates the development of a participatory map (Pmap) that can support the implementation of SUDS as mitigation/adaptation strategies, integrating technical assessment and containing community visions and expectations. Findings concerning the connections between proposed SUDS locations and their frequencies confirm the relevance of the commercial area and the main traffic lanes along, confirming that all zones characterized by intense vehicular and pedestrian flow are suitable for SUDS as a solution to contribute to urban flood resilience. The georeferenced and intergenerational Pmap may be integrated into a decision support system to be developed as a guidance tool for the public administration.

The 2030 Agenda defined 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) divided into 169 targets, applicable everywhere and based on the “No one left behind” principle. Goals and indicators to measure the achievement of the 2030 Agenda have to be localized. The paper presents the Italian current evolution of the territorialization of the SDGs, starting from the global level up to the local one, and wonders if the implementation of the 2030 Agenda takes concrete form with the quantitative monitoring of the SDGs at the local level (municipalities and not only capitals). A comparison among indicators proposed at different levels is set by using an ad hoc comparative reading grid. The analysis highlights that, in Italy, the principle barriers in the territorialization of the SDGs are the lack of data open sources, the proposal of new not adequately validated metrics by institutional/non-institutional subjects and the progressive loss of relationship with Global indicator framework and targets of the 2030 Agenda. The strategies needed to reach sustainable development are obviously site-specific, but we need to maintain common metrics in measuring performances in relation to the 2030 Agenda. In the Global indicator framework for the Sustainable Development Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it is possible to find indicators suitable to measure performances at the local level—albeit in a smaller numbers—but in Italy, there is no awareness about this. Italy is completely losing both the opportunity to compare the results of the effort performed by the Municipalities in a rigorous way and the possibility to use strong metrics to support decision-makers’ policies for the future.

Sand and gravel quarry planning must guarantee the public interest in the procurement of raw materials while ensuring environmental sustainability. An Analyzing Planning Support System for sand and gravel quarry plan can assist decision-makers during the planning process. The proposed Analyzing PSS uses integrating geologic, economic, environmental, and geographic information to quantify raw materials and the size of quarries. This kind of tool is useful to support public authority decisions. The study provides the results of an experience conducted in the province of Brescia (NUT 3 in Northern Italy).

The major event that hit Europe in summer 2021 reminds society that floods are recurrent and among the costliest and deadliest natural hazards. The long-term flood risk management (FRM) efforts preferring sole technical measures to prevent and mitigate floods have shown to be not sufficiently effective and sensitive to the environment. Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) mark a recent paradigm shift of FRM towards solutions that use nature-derived features, processes and management options to improve water retention and mitigate floods. Yet, the empirical evidence on the effects of NBS across various settings remains fragmented and their implementation faces a series of institutional barriers. In this paper, we adopt a community expert perspective drawing upon LAND4FLOOD Natural flood retention on private land network (https://www.land4flood.eu) in order to identify a set of barriers and their cascading and compound interactions relevant to individual NBS. The experts identified a comprehensive set of 17 barriers affecting the implementation of 12 groups of NBS in both urban and rural settings in five European regional environmental domains (i.e., Boreal, Atlantic, Continental, Alpine-Carpathian, and Mediterranean). Based on the results, we define avenues for further research, connecting hydrology and soil science, on the one hand, and land use planning, social geography and economics, on the other. Our suggestions ultimately call for a transdisciplinary turn in the research of NBS in FRM.

A loss of natural capital within cities and their surrounding areas has been noticed over the last decades. Increasing development associated with higher sealing rates has caused a general loss of Urban Green Spaces (UGS) within the urban environment, whereas urban sprawl and the improvement of road networks have deeply fragmented the surrounding landscape and jeopardized ecosystems connectivity. UGS are an essential component of the urban system, and their loss has a greater impact on, e.g., ecological and hydrological processes, threatening human well-being. Different types and spatial configurations of UGS may affect their own ability to provide ecosystem services, such as biodiversity support and water regulation. Nevertheless, the study of UGS spatial patterns is a research branch poorly addressed. Moreover, UGS analyses are mainly focused on public and vast green spaces, but seldom on informal, private, and interstitial ones, returning a myopic representation of urban green areas. Therefore, this study investigates the UGS spatial patterns within six Southern European cities, using the urban morphology analysis to assess all urban vegetated lands. Results revealed three main Urban Green Spatial Patterns (UGSPs): Fragmented, Compact, and Linear Distributions. UGSPs taxonomy represents a novelty in the urban morphology field and may have important implications for the ability to provide ecosystem services and, thus, human well-being.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of the United Nations calls upon all signatory countries to localize its goals through National and Regional Sustainable Development Strategies (SDS). As in Italy the SDS constitute the framework of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of Plans and Programmes (P/P), the question arises as to whether the SEA can represent a fundamental tool for SDS. Although the mutual relationship between 2030 Agenda goals and SEA is recognized in the literature, there is a lack of focus on SDS and SEA. The SEA monitoring system is an essential instrument to redirect P/P trajectories, although it represents a constant weakness of the SEA process. Opening a discussion about the relationship between SDS and SEA, the present contribution aims at assessing SEA monitoring potential in mediating the 2030 Agenda SDS’s objectives into P/P. To this end, the study delves into the SEA monitoring structure through a qualitative and comparative approach, the feasibility of which is illustrated by an application to a set of spatial plans. Results show both good potential and the criticalities of the SEA monitoring system, which allow us to outline practical inputs to update SEA monitoring guidelines and new paths to foster the mutual relationship between the SDS and SEA.