1,721,077 research outputs found
A systemic perspective for the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP)
No full textThe voluntary-based initiative Covenant of Mayors (CoM) focused on the active role of local authorities and increased its targets by 2016, through the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs) in terms of GHG reduction from 20% to 40% by 2030. In actual fact, the SECAP, intended as an urban planning tool, has the potential to improve the resilience of the EU Municipalities to climate-change, developing adaptation/mitigation actions and increasing the ‘environmental awareness’ of the involved actors. From a planning point of view, we affirm that the CoM started a new season of urban planning in Europe that covers the planning demand in the domain of implementing sustainable territorial development objectives. It unlocks the current ineffective planning systems and represents a remarkable practice promoting feasible framework projects for public and private investments. This paper proposes a methodological proposal to exploit this spread of SECAPs in the EU, including the systemic strategic planning approach in the process of SECAP design and ensuring an integrated vision of city development over the list of actions per sector required by the Global CoM procedures. Besides the methodological proposal, a review of the major EU energy policies is provided and relevant Best Practices are presented
Cyclable Cities: Building Feasible Scenario through Urban Space Morphology Assessment
No full textCycling is a climate-friendly, cost-effective, and greenhouse gas-efficient transport mode that produces relevant positive aspects to: urban innovation (new technology and services, that is, e-mobility and public bike-sharing systems), environment (reducing emissions, traffic congestion easing, increasing energy efficiency), public health (road safety, psycho-physical wellbeing, noise reduction), urban economy (infrastructure cost saving, low service and vehicle expenditures, energy saving, creation of sustainable green jobs), and inclusive society (improving inclusion of the local population, quality of life, wellbeing). Considering the 2014 Paris Declaration of the Transport, Health and Environment Pan-European Programme (THE PEP) for "the development of a pan-European Master Plan for cycling promotion,"it is necessary to implement support tools for urban planners and designers, who, simultaneously, provide a cognitive framework able to direct urban policymaking toward active mobility models/options and sustainable urban development processes. After highlighting the good practices of European cities related to the promotion of soft active mobility and modal split that contrast the use of private cars, this study presents a "morpho-syntactic"approach-based methodology apt at analyzing the city of Potenza (county seat of the Basilicata region, southern Italy) with the intention of producing a design scenario to develop urban cycling as an alternative urban development strategy. Geomorphological analysis-based techniques have been integrated with graph theory-based space-morphological analyses using the Space Syntax Analysis and the Place Syntax Analysis. The results obtained are useful to support a decision-making process for the development of an urban cycling infrastructure scheme that integrates Potenza's active transport infrastructures (mechanized pedestrian mobility) according to a multimodal approach. With the current national cycling supportive policy framework, local authorities are in a position to adopt strategies and actions aimed at promoting cycle-tourism and urban cycling, thus improving sustainable mobility policies as a component of urban planning
Mapping Regulation Ecosystem Services Specialization in Italy
No full textNowadays, land-use planning systems show structural weakness from an informative perspective, depending on the capacity to develop rapidly and accurately territorial knowledge as a decision support system (DSS). The capacity to effectively manage territorial transformations in a sustainability perspective is inadequate, especially under the pressure of rapid changes involving social, environmental, and economic dimensions. We recognize the Ecosystem Services (ES) approach as a robust framework to contribute to the renewal of the planning system by introducing spatially explicit knowledge of both actual environmental performances and the expected impacts related to land-use policies and territorial transformations. In this paper, we address the class of Regulation and Maintenance Ecosystem Services (ReMES) that has a relevant influence on the environment's suitability to contribute to human well-being and to relate the local anthropic transformations to the larger scale where ES are provided and the impacts are tangible. The aim of this work is to propose a methodology to build a territorial knowledge infrastructure by mapping a relevant set of ReMES in Italy and identifying specialization subregions, to be intended as areas of high provision of one or more ReMES. The results, interpretable as a measure of territorial performances, represent a cross-cutting informative layer and a tool to support the comparison between different planning scenarios comprehensive of both environmental protection issues and socioeconomic development strategies
Monitoring SEAPs: Mismatching in Italian Implementation of Sustainable Energy Planning
No full textEuropean climate policy, since the 1990s, has developed incrementally and supported programs, plans and actions for sustainable, clean and secure energy. The Covenant of Mayors (CoM), a volunteer movement of local administrators established in 2008, set a target of a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020. The CoM has launched a new season on energy planning in Europe based on Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs), defining actions for selected intervention sectors. The aim of the work was to evaluate after the 2020 deadline, the state of the implementation of Italian CoM signatories, assessing results achieved in terms of the Municipalities involved (CoM signatories), SEAPs developed and Monitoring Reports submitted. Specifically, the analysis of the Monitoring Reports data represents a relevant step needed in order to formulate some critical appraisals concerning the performance level of CoM adoption at a national scale, in terms of the commitment levels, goals achieved and actions completed or in progress. The paper also remarks the recurring issue of mismatching between Italian SEAPs submitted and their Monitoring Reports. This critical step is not allowed to know the real number of CoM Signatories on track or not with their commitments. Therefore, a realistic framework of Monitoring Reports represents a useful tool for interpreting the targets achieved in terms of CO2 reduction and for improving the current Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM) adoption procedures
Geodesign in the Strategic Planning Track: A Participatory Itinerary
No full textThe paper focuses on the importance of participation in strategic planning activities, by integrating traditional and innovative tools, such as Geodesign. The objective is to structure the adoption of participatory practices in ordinary procedures of public decision-making for territorial planning, describing an experience in the Medio Agri area (Basilicata, Italy). A so-called 'engaged research' has been launched that attempts to promote a more resilient and responsible territorial development process, based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and that can be funded by the exceptional public investments currently available in Italy and Europe
Systemic Approach for the Integration of Energy and Climate Planning in Urban Management
No full textThe voluntary-based initiative Covenant of Mayors (CoM) by 2016, through the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs) has focused on the active role of local authorities and increased its targets in terms of GHG reduction from 20% to 40% by 2030. Considering SECAP as an urban planning tool, it can improve the resilience of the EU Municipalities to climate-change, developing adaptation/mitigation actions and increasing the “environmental awareness” of the involved actors. From a planning perspective, the CoM started a new season of urban planning in Europe covering the planning demand in the domain of implementing sustainable territorial development objectives. However, we may affirm that the SECAP is based on a sectorial approach, and it misses an integrated urban vision that represents a pre-requisite for an effective urban planning practice. Thus, in this research we suggest a methodological proposal to exploit this widespread of SECAPs among EU, including the systemic strategic planning approach in the process of SECAP design and ensuring an integrated vision of city development over the list of actions per sectors required by Global CoM procedures
Comprehensive evaluation and Context based approach for the future of Regional Operative Programming in Europe
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An Ecosystem Services-Based Territorial Ranking for Italian Provinces
No full textCities’ Rankings are increasingly used to compare territorial performances related to different dimensions of well-being or territorial development. In the context of urban and territorial planning, they often contribute to legitimizing governance processes and have a marked influence on the evaluation of the policies’ success. Therefore, even if those analytical practices cannot be considered as robust tools, they express a great potential in terms of communication capacity and as an awareness raising tool. The aim of this work is to combine the concept of ranking with the methodological framework of Ecosystem Services (ES), considered a reference in the evaluation of urban and territorial development components towards sustainability. Based on a spatially explicit assessment of a relevant set of ES, the Multiple Ecosystem Services Landscape Index (MESLI) was assessed for the Italian national territory. The resulting spatial distributed layer was subsequently aggregated in order to obtain a ranking of Italian territories based on the concept of ecosystem multifunctionality. The results show an unexpected representation of the environmental performance of the territorial units, which are markedly affected by the reciprocal relationships between environmental and anthropic components of the territorial system. The conclusions highlight the potential of this synthetic indicator that provides valid arguments for the public debate about sustainability and ecosystem multifunctionality driving the attention of decision makers and citizens on the role of ESs’ value in strategic planning and development. The aims are to stimulate a debate concerning environmental performances and to contribute in increasing the non-experts demand for sustainability in the territorial governance processes
Cyclable City: A Territorial Assessment Procedure for Disruptive Policy-Making on Urban Mobility
No full textUrban cycling is one of the main references for the development of sustainable mobility models [1]. Cycling is an active transport mode that is alternative to the use of public and private means of travel. At city scale it collects high levels of users satisfaction. Urban policies encouraging this transport mode are compared with modal split solutions that must take into account the morphological characteristics of the context as well as the organizational dimensions of urban transport. In this work, after highlighting good practices related to traffic moderation, the promotion of soft active mobility (Living street) and the widespread cycling in the urban context, we propose an intervention scenario for the development of an urban cycling infrastructure scheme that integrates current transport infrastructures (mechanized pedestrian mobility) according to a multimodal approach. The sample context is the city of Potenza (Basilicata - Italy). The focus on slow mobility is part of urban mobility strategies. The contribution described in this paper aims at the integration of mechanized pedestrian mobility and local public transport, by road and rail, with active cycle mobility. The aim is to demonstrate how the proposed scheme is feasible with respect to the steepness and integrates infrastructural solutions and reorganization of driveway mobility for widespread use of the bicycle (both traditional and the most innovative forms e-bike and pedelec)
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