Documenting cultural heritage in an INSPIRE-based 3D GIS for risk and vulnerability analysis

Purpose: The study, within the Increasing Resilience of Cultural Heritage (ResCult) project, aims to support civil protection to prevent, lessen and mitigate disasters impacts on cultural heritage using a unique standardised-3D geographical information system (GIS), including both heritage and risk and hazard information. Design/methodology/approach: A top-down approach, starting from existing standards (an INSPIRE extension integrated with other parts from the standardised and shared structure), was completed with a bottom-up integration according to current requirements for disaster prevention procedures and risk analyses. The results were validated and tested in case studies (differentiated concerning the hazard and type of protected heritage) and refined during user forums. Findings: Besides the ensuing reusable database structure, the filling with case studies data underlined the tough challenges and allowed proposing a sample of workflows and possible guidelines. The interfaces are provided to use the obtained knowledge base. Originality/value: The increasing number of natural disasters could severely damage the cultural heritage, causing permanent damage to movable and immovable assets and tangible and intangible heritage. The study provides an original tool properly relating the (spatial) information regarding cultural heritage and the risk factors in a unique archive as a standard-based European tool to cope with these frequent losses, preventing risk

NBS Design and Implementation in Urban Systems: Dimensions, Challenges and Issues to Construct a Comprehensive Evaluation Framework

The paper explores the recent challenge of implementing Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in urban systems, as they represent an opportunity to address social, economic, and environmental issues. Furthermore, the design and implementation of NBS in the urban context are also supported by international and national policies, such as the European Green Deal, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Italian Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). However, despite the growing attention on this topic, there are some critical aspects still unexplored. The European Commission discuss in-depth about these aspects, declaring them as the key points to set future research. Specifically, it has been pointed out that one of the main critical issues to be investigated concerns the development and test of Decision Support Systems (DSS), evaluation tools and models to comprehensively assess NBS interventions to support their design and implementation in urban systems. According to this scenario, this paper is inserted into this research topic. More in detail, the present dissertation is a position paper that underlines the main criticalities concerning the NBS evaluation and identifies a methodological framework and some evaluation techniques that could be used to structure an evaluation framework to overcome the highlighted gaps to answer real operative requirements

Evaluating Nature-Based Solutions Impacts: A Preliminary Framing of Assessment Methods

Nature-based Solutions (NBS) are increasingly promoted to support resilient urban planning. However, integrating NBS into traditional urban planning requires knowledge about the NBS impacts within the environmental, economic, and social spheres. The objective of this paper is to contribute to this knowledge, by systematically identifying assessment methods ‘both qualitative and quantitative’ for NBS impacts evaluation. This literature review is not fully comprehensive, whereas this study represents a first attempt and aims at guiding future research in this field. The literature review is developed according to a threefold approach that represents the sustainability paradigm, i.e., environmental compatibility, economic development, and social equality. From the literature review imbalances are detected between the environmental, economic, and social spheres. This contribution is addressed to public and private bodies dealing with NBS, regarding urban practitioners addressing a comprehensive NBS impacts assessment within urban and territorial transformations. The results of this literature review underline criticalities in dealing with NBS issues comprehensively

Regeneration of Rogoredo railway: a combined approach using multi-criteria and financial analysis

Abandoned areas such as neglected railways and urban voids represent a suitable opportunity for the regeneration and requalification of cities, according to the paradigms of sustainability and resilience. Urban transformation and urban regeneration processes are characterized by a high level of complexity, a dynamic behavior over time and interactions between the various actors involved in the process. Within this context, the present paper proposes the application of a combined evaluation framework, based on the integration of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) with a Financial Analysis (FA) to assess different strategic scenarios for the regeneration of the Rogoredo railways area (Milan, Italy). The purpose of this framework is to take into account the complexity of the decision-making process, considering both the qualitative (social and environmental) and quantitative (economic-financial) aspects. In detail, the railway yards in the Rogoredo area in Milan (Italy) represent an emblematic case. The city of Milan, within the Territory Governance Plan (PGT), has already proposed interventions in this site aimed at reconnecting the infrastructural node and making it an attractive and inclusive pole. The present paper demonstrates the usefulness of evaluation procedures in supporting the entire decision-making process and defining the most suitable scenario considering the initial objective and the stakeholders’ interests. The innovative value provided by this application is represented precisely by the possibility of considering both the developer point of view through FA and the broader public perspective through the support of MCDA. This approach allowed to build and evaluate transformation scenarios capable of both attracting potential investors and promoting sustainable mobility models, social inclusion, eco-sustainable development, improvement of environmental quality through the design of new public areas, green spaces, and services for citizens

Climate Change and Urban Resilience. Preliminary Insights from an Integrated Evaluation Framework

The present paper deals with the investigation of the effects of climate change in the urban systems. The methodology consists in the employment of an MCDA approach, in the form of a system of multidimensional indicators for calculating a multidimensional index of Urban Vulnerability (UVI) as an indirect measure of the urban resilience. Part of the indicators has been processed through the software RClimdex for investigating climate extremes. The methodology has been tested on a real case study in Piedmont, that is the city of Rivoli, in the Metropolitan Area of Turin. The results reveal a higher vulnerability for Rivoli in respect to the city of Turin. This proposal may be considered a reliable tool to support the definition of guidelines and policy implications in the ambit of Climate adaptation planning and Vulnerability reduction

Exploring the Redundancy Capacity Through a System Dynamics Approach

Current urban agenda is interested in developing urban strategies to enhance urban resilience for cities. This paper examines the concept of urban resilience applied in the context of urban planning with specific attention to which are the capacities that make urban systems resilient. The knowledge and the understanding of these capacities are fundamental to set up suitable strategies. However, only few frameworks consider urban resilience and its capacity within the complexity of urban system. Through an in-depth literature review, this paper aims at providing a methodological framework both to recognize these capacities and analyze which are the main factors that mainly contribute to the achievement of these ability. The paper illustrates the first step of the application of a System Dynamics approach to analyze the redundancy capacity in order to define which are the key variables to enhance this capacity and also to determine which can be the impacts on the urban systems as a whole of the redundancy