Green urban planning strategies for climate change resilience of the Catania metropolitan area

Catania covers an area of 180 km2, with a population of 313,000 inhabitants, and a density of 1,733 inhabitants km-2, but it provides services for all city-users who enter the city every day (the conurbation size is about 800,000). Undoubtedly, in the next few decades, urban communities will be the main actors for mitigation and adaptation activities since city areas are the places where climate change strikes in the most extreme way, with challenging weather conditions, pollution, congestion, etc. Unfortunately, to date most Italian municipalities have not finalised any strategies to prevent and/or mitigate the new events related to climatic changes and too often they continue to adopt interventions in emergency situations after the damage has occurred. The present study, following some good practices of an integrated approach, involves the metropolitan area of Catania, based on cooperation between the University and Municipality of Catania, with the view to evaluate the main risks associated with climate change (desertification, soil erosion, urban heat island effect, flooding, etc.) and to develop new policies for urban landscape planning based on a green infrastructure. Drawing on great sources of biodiversity (Nature 2000 sites, including the Mt. Etna National Park and the Simeto River estuary and reserve) the study suggests building an urban green LID network in order to increase the resilience, the efficiency and the sustainability of the Catania metropolitan area. Additionally, by linking the city to the Nature 2000 sites by a peri-urban agro-forestry belt these goals can also be met.