Alessandro Sgobbo

Flood hazard: planning approach to risk mitigation

Control of risks associated with floods in recent years has a central role in urban planning scientific research. This is related to the increased incidence of these phenomena whose the root cause was found in the greater frequency of extreme rainfall events as a result of climate change. In Italy the phenomenon became dramatic because of the numerous human casualties that occur each year. Without prejudice to the need for interventions that effectively act on climate change, there is a need to provide interventions to mitigate the consequences in the short-term. The Department of Urban Planning at Naples University has conducted a thorough research on the case, objectively verifying the impact that human activity has on the dramatic consequences of rainfall events, also highlighting the lack of efficiency of the traditional mitigation measures based on the construction of huge detention basins dug in the ground. This is due to three main reasons: such interventions require financial investments that local communities often do not have; the creation of detention basins cause the removal of large quantities of soil for agricultural use; the continuous increase in impervious surfaces due to urbanization implies the need to cope with the masses of water ever more impressive and therefore the dry ponds already created quickly become insufficient. The research proposes some interventions and best practices that, if adopted, can radically reduce the impact of extreme rainfall on public safety, enabling an efficient participation of private capital in investments through the use of leverage financial and fiscal incentives.

Recycling, Waste Management And Urban Vegetable Gardens

Waste management is an issue where several technical, technological but also social and cultural factors contribute to make it complex, while the concentration of waste production in big cities mainly gives it an urban and metropolitan dimension. Remarkable difficulties can be found in the scarce motivation of the citizens to actively participate in the process of trash separation and collection as well as in the dislike they feel towards the systems and facilities dedicated to waste processing. This paper reports on research in this subject carried out at the University of Naples thanks to a scientific cooperation agreement with the Dutch multinational company Còrio. The verified thesis showed the existence of a close relationship between direct and tangible motivations and the users’ attitude to trash separation. The results were significantly above those expected to be obtained through coercive methods or, even worse, through the promise of an abstract general benefit. The above-mentioned research also brought the implementation of a prototype made up of a playful but at the same time educational urban vegetable garden of around 800 sq. m with a virtuous management system of organic household waste. The experiment, named Orto in Campania, showed the real effectiveness of the proposed solutions with a strong motivational value for the citizens’ involvement but also the mutability of it both in well-established and in new urban areas. The success was so huge that this installation, intended as temporary, is still on course after more than five years.

The Value of Water: an Opportunity for the Eco-Social Regeneration of Mediterranean Metropolitan Areas

The quantitative limitation policies, adopted for environmental, ecological and socio-economic aims, in the Mediterranean metropolitan areas, do not seem to have had the desired effect. In fact, the coercive restraining approach of the metropolitan public Authorities which have tried to impose ecological and cultural objectives collide with the expectations and concrete needs of the citizen. In this way, there is among the stakeholders the distorted perception for which the public and the private interests seem naturally contrasting elements such that the protection of one must necessarily result in the mortification of the other.

GREEN: sustainability, well-being, eco-efficiency

UPLanD intend to promote an interdisciplinary approach to town and regional planning, landscape and environmental design as an effective form of the governance - sustainable and eco-efficient - of processes for the protection, enhancement and development of urban contexts. The first issue of UPlanD Volume 2017, entitled GREEN, intended to bring attention to the topic of ecological sustainability in built and natural environment. Today, being beyond the limit where a merely containment approach could be effective, by avoiding or mitigating the new impacts, it becomes necessary to adopt a new perspective that acting both on new settlements and on consolidated fabrics, leads to the re-establishment of a lost balance, implementing functions, processes and transformations with a positive ecological outcome. Meanwhile, adaptation policies are essential to survive the transition toward new models of human settlements able of sustaining the 10 billion city dwellers expected in 2050.

INTENSSS PA: a systematic approach for INspiring Training ENergy-Spatial Socioeconomic Sustainability to Public Authorities

The INTENSSS PA project, funded by Horizon 2020, the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation of the European Union, aims to support the local authorities involved and their stakeholders to develop an innovative integrated sustainable energy planning concept through a participatory, interdisciplinary and multilevel process. By building individual and institutional capacity of the actors involved, using the Regional Living Lab approach, the concept will be applied in order to develop seven sustainable integrated energy plans. In this first article the project activities and the results achieved so far are preliminary described, anticipating a more extensive and detailed publication on the project planned for the December edition of UPLand – Journal of Urban Planning Landscape & Environmental Design.

RED: hazard, vulnerability, exposure

UPLanD intend to promote an interdisciplinary approach to town and regional planning, landscape and environmental design as an effective form of the governance - sustainable and eco-efficient - of processes for the protection, enhancement and development of urban contexts. The first issue, entitled RED, intended to bring attention to the topic of risks in built and natural environment. Risks are a consequence of hazards, but also and above all, of vulnerability and exposure. But, while hazards are usually part of the environment, exposure and vulnerability originate from three main reasons: ignorance or underestimation of hazards; the belief of being able to managing to their effects; the indifference towards a distant and hypothetical risk as compared to an immediate and concrete benefit. Today the development of adequate policies, the improvement and sharing of best practices, and a careful design research are essential to deal with risks. The very recent seismic events in central Italy furthermore demonstrate the need to immediately focus on the topic

Risk Economy: the effectiveness of urban supportive policies for the safety and resilience in town centres

According to the theories of Campos Venuti in the 1980s urban planning went from a mainly expansive approach to a new one centered on transformation processes. The 1990s and the first decade of the new century saw the disintegration of disciplinary boundaries with the pairing of urban policies with social, fiscal, environmental and finally ecological ones. Today, with such themes we pair emergency ones that require immediate responses, in as far as they are intimately connected to the safety and quality of urban life. The very recent seismic events in central Italy demonstrate the need to directly involve the built heritage in a securing process. The scarcity of resources and the need to govern such practices in a coordinated way that is also respectful of the values at hand gives the matter a urban planning dimension above all. This article is an account of a research on the subject that was conducted at the Federico II University in Naples. The thesis is that solutions to the unsafety of built environment is to be found in public-private partnerships, in a collaborative approach based on urban policies and concrete incentives.

LA CITTÀ CHE SI SGRETOLA: NELLE POLITICHE URBANE ED ECONOMICHE LE RISORSE PER UN’EFFICACE MANUTENZIONE

In questo articolo, nel riportare i risultati di una ricerca, si sollecita l’esigenza di un approccio collettivo alla manutenzione edilizia ed urbana. La tesi e che la crisi economica globale abbia accelerato l’evidenza che il modello di citta via via affermatosi, rigido rispetto a trasformazioni interne che vadano al di la della rigenerazione degli spazi interstiziali e/o dismessi, e incompatibile con un’idea di separazione tra competenze pubbliche e private rigorosamente coincidente con il confine della proprieta; che, nel momento in cui l’involucro di un immobile cessa di essere la semplice corteccia di una funzione personale diventando tessera di un mosaico collettivo, parte di quel bene comune che e bellezza, testimonianza, cultura, qualita, equilibrio, ordine ed arte della citta, compete al pubblico parteciparvi, per la sua quota di proprieta, al mantenimento e valorizzazione. Parole chiave: manutenzione, sicurezza, conservatorismo