Speaker
Description
The growing recognition of the value of nature in addressing current environmental challenges calls for widespread consideration in spatial planning and decision-making processes. Of the many ecosystem services (ES) that nature can provide, some can directly influence the reduction of extreme events severity and, therefore, help adaptation to the impacts of climate change, particularly in urban contexts. However, it is precisely climate impacts in combination with human activity that are compromising the ability of ecosystems to provide these services.
This contribution describes research developed in support of the process of updating and revising the “Piano di Governo del Territorio (PGT)”, the planning tool of the Autonomous Region Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy, taken as a case study. The administration’s objective is to make the tool more flexible and capable of adapting to changing territorial, environmental and social dynamics for eco-sustainable and resilient spatial planning. Concerning the context of the PGT, this research considers the multi-sectoral and multi-scalar aspects that characterise both the ES approach and the climate adaptation processes, then investigates the interdependence between these two themes to promote their integration in plans and policies. It assumes ecosystem services to be tools for assessing territorial performances through which to analyse the territory, as they can be both enabling factors in enhancing an adaptive reading and factors exposed to natural and anthropogenic threats. In this sense, building knowledge on ES can represent an opportunity to guide the inclusion of adaptation processes in planning tools and inform sustainable decisions.
First, the research identifies the main barriers to the implementation of ES in planning from a literature review. Second, it reflects on the ways to overcome these barriers by developing an integrated decision-support model, i.e., a practical context-specific toolkit that can, at the same time, make a theoretical contribution to the discipline of spatial planning. The focus is placed on a subset of ES that can foster adaptation, which in this research takes the name of Ecosystem Services for Climate Change Adaptation (ESCCA). The model consists of three main phases: (i) assessing the supply of ESCCA, (ii) defining the demand for ESCCA and identifying deficit areas, i.e., those areas where demand is not met by supply, and (iii) based on the latter, guiding the selection of appropriate nature-based solutions.
The aim is not to reach the best solution but to inform and train decision-makers to understand the importance of these two interconnected issues and their role in ordinary planning. Thus, the discussion will not focus on the methodology but more on the results obtained and the process of building a climate action and transition-oriented reasoning as an innovative guideline to adopt a new approach rather than one more tool. That makes it possible to promote forward-looking and cross-sectoral actions, not relegated to extraordinary planning, which appears outdated in light of the current planetary crisis. Finally, the research returns to the barriers found in the literature and, looking at Friuli Venezia Giulia’s PGT, proposes valuable observations and take-home messages from the case study and beyond.
| Keywords | decision-support model; climate change adaptation; ecosystem approach; planning process |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
