Abstract
Towards the European Commission “2050 no net land take” goal, many European policies recall the need to consider soil desealing measures in urban planning instruments. Within the context of increasing soil permeability and reducing its imperviousness, the term soil desealing – also referred to as soil unsealing or depaving – has been used in the scientific literature since the 1990s, when the concept started to acquire an individual relevance instead of being a consequence of urban or fluvial regeneration processes. Nonetheless, a unique comprehensive definition of soil desealing has yet to be provided, as well as a systematic implementation of desealing actions in urban transformation practices. This paper aims at identifying the role of desealing in urban planning and cities’ adaptation processes, as well aspects that need to be considered, in order to set a solid – but open – framework that lays the foundation for defining an approach to mainstream desealing practices in the urban regeneration processes and planning instruments. This study will provide an analysis of the existing literature, including a review of the existing soil desealing definitions, and outlining the recognized benefits and potential issues of these actions. Results show that cities and international entities, as well as the scientific community, are posing increasing attention to soil desealing, opening new scenarios for their implementation. Acknowledging the role of good spatial planning for more liveable cities, this contribution will present possible soil desealing implementation scenarios in urban planning tools.
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Aosta Valley; Piedmont (Draft Regional Law 302/2018; Bill 74/2020); Lombardy (R.L. 12/2005; 24/2006; 31/2014 and 18/2019; Regional Council Resolution 5135/XI); Veneto (R.L. 14/2017 and 14/2019; Regional Territorial Coordination Plan 2020); Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano (P.L. 11/2007; Provincial President Decree 31/2018); Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Piano di Governo del Territorio 2013); Liguria (R.L. 23/2018); Emilia-Romagna (R.L. 24/2017); Tuscany (Rules 2/2007; R.L. 65/2014); Marche (R.L. 22/2011); Umbria; Lazio (R.L. 7/2017); Abruzzo (Bill 252/2022; Bill 4 dec. 2017); Molise; Campania (Resolution 527/2019); Puglia (Regional Landscape Plan Document 4.1); Basilicata; Calabria (R.L. 19/2002; Regional Landscape Framework – Vo.2); Sicily (R.L. 19/2020); Sardinia.
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Attributions and Acknowledgements
Conceptualization: M.C., I.D.N., B.C., E.G., and M.Z; supervision: M.Z. and B.C.; data collection and organization: M.C. and I.D.N.; writing-original draft: M.C. and I.D.N. (§1 I.D.N., §2 M.C., §3.1 I.D.N., §3.2 and §4 M.C., §5 M.C. and I.D.N., and §6 I.D.N.); writing-review and editing: B.C., E.G., and M.Z.
This work was carried out within the PhD programme of Arch. Marianna Ceci and Ing. Arch. Ilaria De Noia, funded by the National Operational Programme on Research and Innovation 2014–2020, FSE REACT-EU funds, Action IV.4 and IV.5. CUP: D91B21004730007; scholarships: DOT1321814 n. 2 (M.C.) and n. 6 (I.D.N.).
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Caselli, B., Ceci, M., De Noia, I., Garda, E., Zazzi, M. (2024). Towards the Integration of Soil Desealing in the Urban Areas’ Transformation Processes. In: Marucci, A., Zullo, F., Fiorini, L., Saganeiti, L. (eds) Innovation in Urban and Regional Planning. INPUT 2023. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 467. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54118-6_27
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