Climate Change-Oriented Urban Green Network Design: A Decision Support Tool

Within the broad framework of the Smart City the use of technological tools represents a support to achieve urban heat island reduction targets more effectively, thanks to their ability to simulate both the energy and thermal behavior of urban areas. In this perspective many studies refer to green spaces that may represent an opportunity to implement climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, even though the criteria that should guide their design are still unclear. This work proposed a methodology to define a green space network within stratified urban areas on the basis of the outputs of a micro-climate simulation software. A decision support tool was developed and tested on a significant part of the city of Naples (southern Italy). It can be useful for Local Authorities to locate and distribute green spaces in those sections of the urban fabric that do not benefit from the cooling effect of vegetation. According to the main findings of the simulations, it can be stated that the best response for mitigating temperatures is a network of small green spaces equally and densely distributed within the urban fabric, rather than few large green areas located only in a few points of the city.