• Energy Research

This research implements a GIS framework model aimed at evaluating the ecological efficiency of urban green areas. The model classifies urban green areas by identifying those that can provide ecosystem services to sustain green infrastructure at an urban district level. This model can also guide decision makers in the proper placement of the green infrastructure. The model works on the interrelation of four indicators of size, shape, vegetation structure and vegetation diversity, and it was tested in the case study of the Western Urban Districts of Naples (Italy). The selection of this study area is because it presents four urban districts that are different for physiography, urban patterns, land use, land cover and for the existing building stock. The proposed GIS-based framework can be a useful tool for planning actions and measures to protect, implement and restore existing green areas through integration into urban green infrastructure.

Various studies have confirmed the implications of Vertical Greening System (VGS) as a nature-based solution to climate change mitigation. Even though VGSs are well established in operational terms, the design framework is still poor at managing social, economic, and environmental performance. This study through comprehensive review of studies and interview in related companies aims to improve the design process of VGS to standardise built operations, with the goal of increasing sustainability and efficiency. This study reviewed the VGS design process across various countries, addressed the main gaps, and proposed a Vertical Greening Integrated System (VGIS) approach. The main gaps identified are a lack of a specific goal for VGS design, an overlooked pre-design phase to consider all socio-economic and environmental factors, and a monitoring phase to control VGS performance. The non-academic sector, such as VGS producers, overlooks the crucial role of users and their enhancement of awareness.

Current environmental challenges invite us to deeply revise policies, governance models, and resource management toolkits towards a circular approach, in order to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requirements. In this framework, circular waste management is one of the pillars of responsible and foresighted planning for territorial sustainability. The “3Rs for a sustainable use of natural resources in Ulaanbaatar” (3R4UB) project aims at transferring a sustainable approach to urban solid waste management, especially focusing on providing effective opportunities for developing circular supply chains locally. In this framework, an integrated approach has been developed in order to adapt the communication/exploitation plan of sustainable waste management within a SWITCH-Asia Country (EU Program) by combining engagement tools and participatory processes for the collaborative design of a waste management masterplan. This paper explores the spatialization of resources/waste flows in the formal and informal settlements, while also considering cultural traditions, social structures, and community habits, in terms of a purposely designed combination of spatial planning, governance modeling, and capacity building activities. Starting from a preliminary communication plan, this paper sets the frame for discussing the role of community engagement tools and protocols in producing an effective and generalizable collaborative waste management masterplan.

This article is a critical essay about the relevance of green infrastructures in reducing urban vulnerability with respect to the climate change impacts. The Author aims at demonstrating the relations between the presence of urban green infrastructures and the amount of the eco-systemic services provided by. The study takes as a key reference the naturalness gradient expressed by the different typologies of urban green areas, including artificial surfaces (roofs and green facades ), bare soils, brownfield areas. The study outlines a research perspective for the urban green infrastructures according to the technological and environmental requirements of the intervention, resulting from listing, cataloging and hierarchization of the ecosystem services provided by both the different components of a green infrastructure, as well as the specificity of techniques and plant materials used in the project. This article is part of a wider research on human-made soils in urban areas, and it summarized some of the main advances that the Author has produced since the 2012.

City is the place where global crisis effect manifests itself in the hardest mode. At the same time city is the main resource that we have to face the crisis. We should apply the sustainability motto "Thinking global and acting local" to combat against economic, social and environmental crisis. European situation is different, on the one hand, in rich Countries as Germany and United Kingdom and, on the other hand, in Countries as Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy that are facing socio-economic troubles. But in all these Countries cities are the junction to pass from the crisis towards the economic and socio-cultural restart. Europe 2020 is the UE strategy for re-launch productivity and society. Europe 2020 has five objective: employment, innovation, education, social inclusion and climate/Energy. JPI Urban propose to carry out the strategy through innovation and technology, sustainable mobility, social cohesion and integration, ecological footprint reduction. Urban research context is becoming more and more complex because the global crisis has had a strong impact also at local level and at the urban scale. Urban planning and design can help re-development strategies and cities could favorite the economic growth through renovation of spaces and functions. Research activities should define approaches and methodologies to develop economy and meantime to contrast social distress and spatial segregation. We must face lost of identity and semantic weakness, we should promote cultural variety and richness. JPI Urban topics should be integrated by cultural variety as semantic resource for architectural language, urban places identity, urban space and functions recovery, land vocation. Architecture and urban planning continue to be penalized by aesthetic design and less sensitive approaches to local cultures and identities, to the "genius loci". The state of the art sometimes reveals an attitude of ideological foreclosure toward the economic dimension of sustainability. Especially in Italy, there is a strong focus on environmental and social factors and a partial detachment of architectural and planning research toward the more strictly economic factors. Often it is not pursue the balanced application of the sustainability principles in three dimensions: environmental, social and economic. European research should define new possible intervention strategies for adapting the urban spaces and functions to the new scenario and new requirements, to enhance competitiveness regionally and globally in a sustainable manner, to improve the quality of urban life. The nodes to be solved are the loss of identity of urban places, the approval of architectural languages, semantic loss of urban spaces, social and cultural exclusion, spatial segregation. The innovative methods will have to answer to the demand of city and architecture posed by urban communities, in the current global crisis, through the tools of analysis, interpretation, decision support and proposals for action. In this perspective, the role of all stakeholders and actors in the area acquires special importance.

AbstractThe phenomenon of the abandonment of terraced landscapes compromises environmental well-being and is a preamble to hydrological instability and, consequently, the collapse of terrace retain...

Nell’epoca dell’Antropocene, in cui gli impatti delle attività dell’uomo sono scientificamente riconosciuti come fattore determinante per la “riconoscibilità” geologica del pianeta, la società ha più che mai bisogno di educazione, cultura, informazione e capacità di azione per modificare la traiettoria pericolosamente tracciata dalla crescita illimitata dei modelli contemporanei di produzione e consumo. I processi antropogenici e l’instabilità climatica che ne deriva inducono conseguenze per le specie viventi e per l’intero pianeta, sulla qualità degli ecosistemi e sullo stesso sviluppo della vita. Il concetto di futuro è compromesso da questo stato di cose, ma ragionare su di esso è la condizione preliminare affinché nei prossimi decenni possa verificarsi una stabilizzazione delle condizioni climatiche attuata attraverso azioni combinate di adattamento e di mitigazione. Se il futuro è già tra noi quando viene pensato nei suoi termini più allarmanti ed estremi, è vero anche che il futuro è già tra noi nelle enormi potenzialità che la condizione contemporanea ci offre: «It was the best of times, it was the wrost of times» (Dickens, 1859).