Urban greening policies and measures have recently shown a high potential impact on the design and reshaping of the built environment, especially in urban regeneration processes. This book provides insights on analytical methods, planning strategies and shared governance tools for successfully integrating Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in the urban planning practice. The selected contributions present real-life application cases, in which the mainstreaming of NBS are investigated according to two main challenges: the planning and designing of physical and spatial integration of NBS in cities on one side, and the implementation of suitable shared governance models and co-creation pathways on the other.
Israa H. Mahmoud is s a post-Doc research fellow at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano.
Eugenio Morello is professor at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano.
Davide Geneletti is professor at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering of the University of Trento.
Fabiano Lemes de Oliveira is professor at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano.
From "Mainstreaming Nature-Based Solutions in Cities Through Performance-Based Planning: A Case Study in Trento, Italy" (Pagg. 20-21)
Contemporary urban planning acknowledges that environmental issues are intertwined with socio-economic aspects, and it is expected to manage the complexity of urban transformations so that they enhance the quality of life in the city in a wide sense (Cortinovis and Geneletti, 2018). Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have the potential to address urban challenges related to water security, climate regulation, public health, food access, social cohesion, and job opportunities through enhancing the provision of ecosystem services (ES) {Formatting Citation}. They include the creation and restoration of green spaces, such as parks that provide recreational opportunities (Cortinovis and Geneletti 2018), urban forests, street trees and green roofs that regulate urban temperature and air quality (Langemeyer et al 2019; Norton et al 2015), rain gardens and constructed wetlands that control run-off and purify water (Rodak et al 2019), and community gardens that provide fresh food (Cabral et al 2017). The multiple ecosystem functions of NbS, as well as their interaction with the social and technological context, ensure the provision of additional co-benefits (Keeler et al 2019). From this perspective, mainstreaming NbS in urban plans is considered a way to increase the environmental quality of urban transformations, while a range of social and economic co-benefits (Raymond et al. 2017). The concept of ES and the wide variety of methods to predict the expected impact of proposed interventions on ES supply, as well as the demand for ES that arises from current or foreseen socio-economic conditions (Grêt-Regamey et al. 2017; Haase et al. 2014) can be applied to describe NbS and their consequences on human wellbeing (Geneletti et al. 2020a, b; Cortinovis and Geneletti 2019).
The aim of this contribution is to present the development and application of a performance-based planning approach promoting the integration of NbS in urban transformations. The approach is based on the information produced by ES mapping and assessment at the urban scale, which allows estimating the impacts of proposed urban transformations and defining for them required performances. These performances consist of the deployment of appropriate NbS that can offset the negative impacts generated by the urban transformation. As shown by the application, flexibility and capacity to embrace multi-functionality and urban complexity make performance-based planning a suitable way to promote and implement NbS in cities.
The case study selected to test the proposed approach is Trento, an alpine city in northern Italy. The drafting of the new City Plan for Trento (2017-2020) provided the opportunity to propose and test how the planning process can integrate ES knowledge and contribute to mainstreaming NbS. To this aim, we worked in close collaboration with key staff from the city administration on different actions, among which are the identification of key urban ES and the development of the performance-based approach here described. The civil servants involved discussed the selection of relevant ES and provided feedback on the proposed approach.
Courtesy by Springer