Keywords

1 Introduction

Outdoor urban spaces denote increasing climate change vulnerability in particular to flooding and urban heat islands (Matos Silva 2019; Graaf-van 2021) so much so that they could potentially be uncomfortable, unusable, or dangerous for people. The chronicity of climate extreme episodes has progressively required adaptation strategies capable of taking into account localized characterizations according to the identification of site-specific risks and the formulation of possible climatic scenarios based on the knowledge of the territory, on its socioeconomic and geographical context (Hagenlocher et al. 2018). It is no coincidence that many recent Euro-partnership climate change policies are precisely aimed at the coastal territories of the Mediterranean defined as a “hot-spots,” one of the most sensitive regions to global warming (Guida 2021). The European Union has promoted the member states’ actions in a progressively more structured way, coordinating the sharing of experiences and the development of climate-adaptive actions through a series of specific initiatives (from the 2008 Climate and Energy Package and Directives 2009/28/EC, 2010/31/EU, and 2012/27/EU to the 2021 EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change and Next Generation EU). One of these initiatives, the Covenant of Mayors (CoM), launched by the European Commission in 2008, expanded in 2015 and since then evolved into the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, brings together in a network the cities that intend to launch a coordinated set of initiatives. The signatories undertake to exceed the European targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the resilience level of their territories.

The public bodies that adhere to the CoM are required to edit a Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP), drawn up with the participation of civil society and accompanied by monitoring and verification tools. The plan defines a set of comprehensive measures that a municipality intends to implement on the basis of an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities induced by climate change. In this context, the Interreg Italy-Croatia Joint_SECAP (Joint Strategies for Climate Change Adaptation in Coastal Areas) project, conducted between 2019 and 2021, stems from the desire to bring together neighboring territories and build a common methodology to define joint SECAPs focused on sharing knowledge on climate change adaptation and mitigation measures for coastal areas of the Adriatic (Brownlee et al. 2022). The partnership was formed by a network of eight Italian and Croatian partners who have identified at least one target area in contiguous municipalities, on which they carried out the experimentation, in collaboration with local institutions. The partnership shared basic knowledge regarding adaptation strategies to climate change, also through a specific Web platformFootnote 1 that acts as a tool for the development of climate scenarios, necessary, and preparatory for the development of the joint actions. The main objective of the project was to improve climate change monitoring and plan adaptation measures to tackle specific climate change effects in the area of cooperation. The project proved to be innovative due to its ability to work on a scale larger than the single district, putting the neighboring territories’ vulnerabilities into a system, and identifying common actions.

2 Objective

The study starts from the observation that the measures proposed by the climate change adaptation plans such as SECAPs require application processes capable of allowing their assimilation into the ordinary management tools of the territory and require variable times for their complete integration, often several years (medium-long time). The issues that may limit the effective implementation of these actions within the territorial management tools or outdoor urban space projects are not only linked to financial or governance matters; nor do they purposely refer to the absence of adequately trained human resources (Messori et al. 2020; Pascali and Bagaini 2021): but often the cause should be sought precisely from the lack of integration between plans that operate at different levels (Pietrapertosa et al. 2019).

In this interval, however, some urban contexts and in particular outdoor spaces could use measures capable of providing timely solutions, immediately applicable, in order to maintain their qualitative connotations of livability. Implementing and developing practices in medium/short times and addressing issues that concern the connection between strategic-programmatic planning and operational-constructive aspects (Angelucci and Di Sivo 2018) could be considered as a first and immediate tactical phase, in which actions could then translate it into ordinary programming with medium-long applicability, supporting some aspects, and facilitating the transition to such measures.

In this sense, the Covid-19 crisis offered several perspectives that picture issues related to urban space use in relation to the need to intervene promptly: an unexpected series of experiences and countless bottom-up practices that emerged highlighted that adaptation also depends on the community’s dynamic features to respond to contingencies (McCullough 2020). In fact, communities have often shown their ability to generate transformations even before the necessary decisions were taken in order to convert spaces originally conceived for different purposes into legitimate and consolidated infrastructures (Manzini 2021). Many outdoor spaces in cities around the world have suddenly found a new connotation, animated and put into practice by the will of the local communities. One of the pillars at the base of climate resilience is precisely the transformative capacity: the ability to create an “enabling environment, strengthen the skills of key players, and identify and implement catalytic interventions,” to be characterized through the key factor of time (Graaf-van 2021). The literature agrees in defining the urgent need to identify adaptive urban design tools, based on the idea of working on an open project, capable of changing over time, and also capable of creating an added value to the spaces we inhabit, through the variability of “elastic spatial arrangements” (Manigrasso 2019).

The capacity of bottom-up transformations, therefore based on the need to optimize procedures and finalize objectives in a rational way, in a certain sense can be considered as a reference of the technological process, and allow us to understand how some tools, including applicative-constructive ones, managed by associations and local communities, albeit rudimentary, can significantly contribute to increasing the level of urban space resilience.

3 Methodology and Results

The study is based on the data collected during the Joint_SECAP project in the target areas analyzed by the project partners. In particular, the risk and vulnerability assessment makes it possible to have a detailed picture of the risks associated with climate change. Through these data, it is possible to obtain general information concerning risks and vulnerabilities of the mid-Adriatic coastal areas and to draw up a list of the most recurring vulnerabilities, and consequently of the most widespread impacts that develop during specific climatic events. Table 71.1 reports in detail the link that is established between vulnerabilities, climatic impact, and the risks for the population, for urban structures, for energy production, and for transportation (Table 71.1). As is known, the recognized definition of adaptation to climate change refers to the ability of a measure to adapt certain contextual conditions to the current or expected climate, and to its effects in the future or during specific climatic events. In human systems, adaptation seeks to moderate or avoid harm and, when possible, to exploit any beneficial opportunities introduced by the measures themselves (IPCC 2018). Normally, these measures can limit the risks through the reduction of vulnerability factors, the propensity or predisposition of a territory to be affected, and in some cases decrease exposure factors, the presence of people, livelihoods, ecosystems, etc., that could be adversely affected. Vulnerability can be reduced by decreasing the sensitivity or increasing the capacity of the systems (Fig. 71.1).

Table 71.1 Most common vulnerability factors (sensitivity) of the mid-Adriatic coastal areas (data from the JointSECAP project, Italian Adriatic coastal area, re-elaborated by the author)
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Fig. 71.1
A block diagram explains that adaptation measures decrease exposure, increase capacity, decrease sensitivity, and reduce intermediate impacts. It denotes the effect on sensitivity and intermediate impacts leads to temporary adaptation option.

How temporary adaptation measures can intervene in reducing the effect of climate impact and decreasing vulnerability climate impact and decreasing vulnerability

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With respect to the topics dealt with, it is urgent to find an applicative characterization for some measures which, in order to be effective, must work on the superimposition of the project’s scales, as a matter of connection in the physical and temporal dimensions.

And if adaptation to climate change works precisely on these multiscalar factors, we can see a gap between the macro and the meso-micro-level, between the—programmed strategy and the—activated implementation, in which plans and strategies often risk being described through an incomplete vision of the transformation process underway, of the actions and objectives achieved (Rossi 2019). The study led to the identification of possible meta-design actions aimed at decreasing several vulnerability factors of the mid-Adriatic city and reducing the impact deriving from climate change. The possible actions are based on the physical characteristics of outdoor urban space, in a densely urbanized context and with sealed pavings. The analysis of the vulnerabilities and climatic impact that affect urban spaces leads to the selection of some light transformation actions of the urban environment, which can be implemented through temporary stratification.

The study identified a series of international case studies, relevant since they were designed to facilitate the use of outdoor spaces, sometimes born as a local community answer during the pandemic lockdown intervals.

The case studies used by the research, here only briefly reported, have not been designed as climate change adaptation measures, but they are analyzed with this objective, on the basis of a hidden potential that can be deduced from their characteristics, among all the ability to effectively stratify the hosting urban spaces. The analyzed examples propose interventions that can be rapidly implemented, through reversible stratification actions and reconfigurable matrices, suggesting models that can be exported to contexts with similar characteristics.

The case studies, interpreted in consideration of their transferable potential, give the opportunity to understand that through light construction features it is possible to improve the safety conditions of the urban space. The article summarizes five possible actions (Fig. 71.2), please consider that the mentioned case study for each action is only one of the possible ones.

Fig. 71.2
An illustration represents 5 actions for temporary adaptation as follows. 1. raise. 2. screen. 3. sponge. 4. separate. 5. shelter.

Five possible meta-actions for temporary adaptation

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For a complete analysis of the case studies referring to each action refer to future discussions.

  1. 1.

    Raise. Vulnerability factors: water storage capacity, outdated drainage system, road network prone to flooding. Related impact factors combined with extreme precipitation: flooding, excessive runoff. Possible case study, used as a reference for the constructive implementation transfer: AAIM Architecture + Urban Matters, Urban Bloom, Shanghai, 2019, temporary setup based on the use of a new raised surface of the open space.

  2. 2.

    Screen. Vulnerability factors: outdoor surface prone to overheating, water scarcity. Related impact factors: extreme heat, hailstorm. Possible case study, used as a reference for the constructive implementation transfer: Andrés Jaque Arquitectos, Escaravox, Madrid, 2012, structure with variable configurations for temporary cultural events.

  3. 3.

    Sponge. Vulnerability factors: water storage capacity, outdated drainage system, road network prone to flooding, high soil sealing level. Related impact factors combined with extreme precipitation: flooding, excessive runoff. Possible case study, used as a reference for the constructive implementation transfer: Shma, Come on/calm on, Bangkok, 2021.

  4. 4.

    Separate. Vulnerability factors: road network prone to flooding, shoreline modification. Related impact factors combined with hailstorms and precipitation: flooding. Possible case study, used as a reference for the constructive implementation transfer: Colab-19, SCA, Taller Architects, Instalación Activación Vertical, Bogotà, 2020.

  5. 5.

    Shelter. Vulnerability factors: water storage capacity, outdoor surface prone to overheating. Related impact factors: extreme heat, higher average temperature. Possible case study, used as a reference for the constructive implementation transfer: Breath Earth Collective, Airship 01 mobile forest, Roma, Milano, Padova, 2016, pavilion based on air quality improvement.

The methodological approach is illustrated through a case study (Fig. 71.3) referred to the meta-action n° 1 raise, explained through a diagram that highlights the main aspects concerning the extrapolation and re-interpretation of several technological-constructive solutions. The research, for the sake of synthesis, is mentioned here only for one of the meta-actions but is based on the application of this methodological approach to multiple case studies for each one of the five described temporary measures. The meta-actions thus described can be added together.

Fig. 71.3
An illustration indicates the actions, vulnerability factors to tackle, outdoor spaces, urban rainwater funnel, permeable and walkable surface, harvesting surface, water treatment filter, and the surface prone to flooding.

Extrapolation and re-interpretation of the case study’s technological-constructive solutions

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4 Conclusions

The focus introduced by the paper provides a contribution that refers to a broad and trans-disciplinary topic such as adaptation to climate change that needs to be investigated in all the facets of its complexity. The contribution briefly illustrates one of the five temporary adaptation meta-actions and provides a first set of possibilities for provisional intervention aimed at the enhancement and recovery of outdoor urban spaces of the mid-Adriatic Italian cities, vulnerable to climate change, as a measure to respond quickly and not necessarily in a systemic and permanent way to climate events. The mentioned example illustrates how light and temporary layering of open spaces can also be implemented through modular and easily arrangeable solutions. In this sense, some operations aimed at securing outdoor urban spaces during climatic events, being quite light, could be easily implemented by local community services. The measures described provide a possible partial response to the lack of integration between the macro and the meso-micro-level, between the—programmed strategy and the—activated implementation level, pending more effective measures that will be implemented over a longer period of time. The topic suggests that the identification of possible transformations that lead to a climate-adaptive built-in environment requires a series of technological and experimental steps to make them possible. The subject is treated only in its general character and requires future investigations and verifications, to be developed through specific projects located on real outdoor urban sites.