Cities and urban systems are the places most responsible for climate change, but at the same time they are the places where its effects are felt the most. A state-of-the-art analysis showed that Ecological–Environmental, Settlement, and Infrastructure and Service Systems are the components of cities most exposed to risk phenomena. Therefore, it is important to identify site-specific actions aimed at enhancing ecosystem services and building hierarchical ecological networks (green and blue infrastructures), according to an Ecosystem-based Approach (EbA). In this regard, the contribution presents the results of a research work on the theme of multi-risks connected to climate change, referring to heavy rains and river flood phenomena and sea level rise and proposes a systematisation of international best practices in the field of the Ecosystem-based Approach (EbA). Each best practice analysed is traced back to the three urban resilience macro-strategies of “defence”, “adaptation”, and “relocation/de-anthropisation”, already conceptualised by the authors during their joint research activity. The aim is to outline a synthetic toolkit of site-specific design actions, exportable to other contexts, intended as a tool to support the innovation of urban planning tools at the local level.

In recent years, the territorial impacts connected to sea level rise have prompted a reflection on the responsibilities of policy makers in transposing these issues into urban agendas. The need also emerged to both broaden and update the skills of urban planners and to improve territorial governance tools, with the aim of developing feasible regeneration and resilience strategies to face climate change. In this paper, a methodology for the production of Flood Risk Maps is presented, as applied to the Municipality of Ravenna, Italy, by only considering the static component of inundation hazard, i.e., the projected Mean Sea Level Rise, as a first step towards increased preparedness. The resulting Flood Risk Maps represent, in fact, an innovation with respect to the current cognitive framework that supports local urban planning, by providing information on a potential risk that has so far been overlooked. The method combines sea level rise projections under the pessimistic RCP8.5 scenario with georeferenced territorial data, aiming to identify the physical consistency of the urban-structure components which are potentially at risk. For successive time horizons (2030, 2050 and 2100), our results show the progressive impairment and potential degradation of extensive urban areas that are disregarded in the urban planning regulations currently in force. This preliminary evaluation phase is aimed at prompting and supporting the necessary updating of the planning tools and regulations adopted by the public bodies responsible for territorial governance, by identifying priority areas for intervention, and helping define mitigation and adaptation actions.

The increasing concentration of people and economic activities in urban areas intensifies the pressure on the urban environment and hastens environmental degradation processes. Therefore, addressing the impact of climate change on cities is an urgent matter that demands the immediate attention of policymakers, researchers, and the general public, not only for its environmental but also socioeconomic ramifications. Within this framework, the research focuses on the effects of climate change on coastal cities and aims to define guidelines for the innovation of urban planning tools from a climate-proof perspective. Specifically, the study analyses the effects of two phenomena related to climate change: heavy rainfall, river overflow, and sea-level rise, to establish a replicable approach for updating the documents that constitute the cognitive framework of the Local Urban Plan through the preparation of a multi-risk map (that considers different time horizons) and consequently the prescriptive apparatus of the Plan through the definition of a toolkit of site-specific design actions oriented towards urban adaptation. The proposed methodology is tested on the case study of Isola Sacra, Fiumicino (Italy), and is intended to apply to other territorial contexts. The aim of this study, in accordance with the principles of the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) framework, is to furnish theoretical-methodological and operational guidelines to translate risk knowledge, despite its limitations due to variables and uncertainties in measurements, into effective urban adaptation measures.

The conformation and dynamics of metropolitanisation act as propulsive elements of territorial transformations. The deficiency of infrastructural equipment, the heterogeneity of urban fabric and the lack of services and public spaces contribute to severing the identity ties between settled communities and territories. In light of this, within the more general reflection concerning urban regeneration, we recall the role that cultural heritage plays in the physical and functional organisation of the city, as a reflection of the interaction between community and context. The contribution is contextualized in the research work on the activities related to Thematic Line 4 of the Extended Partnership 5—CHANGES (NRRP). The thematic line activities follow three phases: 1. contextualization; 2. operational phase; 3. experimentation. The research work presented here is part of the ‘operational phase’, to identify strategies and projects for heritage-led regeneration. The article analyses the pilot case of CSOA Forte Prenestino as a starting point for thinking about expanding the research activity to other similar cases. It is a self-managed community centre in Rome (Italy) located in the nineteenth-century Forte, which has become a symbol of collective identity. The case study was identified following three levels of investigation: 1. identification of the municipality, first-level administrative subdivision of the city of Rome (Italy); 2. identification of the main historical, archaeological and architectural emergencies of the municipality; 3. identification of an asset to be analysed as “Heritage by designation” (involvement of experts) and “Heritage by appropriation” (involvement of communities). The research results show the “Recognition Path” of Forte Prenestina: according to what has been ‘designated’ by urban planning instruments, project instruments, legislative instruments and authors of scientific publications and conferences; and on the basis of the bottom-up ‘appropriation’ process of the asset that has allowed its management, assessment of its cultural and social potential and its development. The research results allow us to reflect on heritage-led urban regeneration as a strategy capable of capturing and promoting the links between social integration and cultural–historical identity.

The current socio-economic dynamics and the consequences induced by the pandemic emergency have generated a reflection on the need to recover the dimension of proximity and to share resources, spaces, infrastructures, and experiences. This solicits a remodelling of the system of public open spaces, based on a resilient, adaptive model; multifunctional and linked to the temporality of the functions that spaces can accommodate. The paper deals with the issues of planning and design of public open spaces around the needs of proximity and welfare. This is achieved through collecting and systematizing state of the art concepts on the role of public space within the urban structure of the city, and the formulation of guidelines for design, deduced from an empirical application conducted on a pilot district in the city of Rome. The paper aims to suggest to policymakers and planners a new approach and a path for future research and practice in the planning and design of more sustainable and inclusive green areas and public spaces, meeting the diverse needs of citizens. We undertook this objective through the experimental application of an intervention methodology on the public space system of the San Lorenzo neighbourhood in Rome.

The impact of metropolization processes and climate change effects on natural and anthropic environments, together with energy waste, the excessive consumption of agricultural and natural soils and their progressive waterproofing and a reduction in vegetation cover, highlights the need for sustainable management of existing resources, in terms of equitable and ethical development, towards sustainable and inclusive communities able to adapt to the negative effects of emergency phenomena. This contribution presents the results of the activities conducted in the RivEr/Generation_LAB, a project organized by three CIVIS members (Sapienza University of Rome, Universitè libre de Bruxelles, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid) as a part of the CIVIS Project “RivEr/Generation_LAB. Linking resilience with inclusiveness in the urban built environment of Rome, Brussels, and Madrid”, financed by the Hub4 Cities, Territories & Mobilities’ Call for proposals 2021. The project proposes a methodology of intervention in the Flaminio district, in particular in the Olympic Village and its relationship with the Tiber River, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the New European Bauhaus, to establish new relationships between cities and the natural environment, favoring sustainable and inclusive public spaces.