Architecture, Spatial Planning, and Interdisciplinarity for Increased Urban Climate Resilience and Biodiversity: Dealing and Designing with Energy, Water, and Ecosystems
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Water Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2025 | Viewed by 118
Special Issue Editors
2. Environmental Politics and of Sustainability Laboratory A, Ca' Foscari International College, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Venice, Italy
Interests: systems thinking and diagramming; urban and regional metabolism; resilient design; planning choices towards strong socio-ecological sustainability in a challenging century
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: climate mitigation and adaptation in urban contexts; urban biodiversity increase through nature-based solutions; simulation and modelling for building performance assessment
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Report after report, international climate change forecasts for the next decades are becoming more and more dramatic, and new expressions are stepping into the scientific lexicon, such as climate crisis and climate emergency, together with the need to meet the planetary boundaries. Furthermore, the already alarming information on average global warming intrinsically hides the fact that increased temperatures will be much higher on the terrestrial surface than in the oceans, and higher in heavily anthropised areas than in more biodiverse ecosystems. As a matter of fact, the galloping urbanisation threatens to contribute to both the drivers of climate change and to the exposed environments, including—among others—flooding, heat waves, and heat islands. Far from reassuring narratives, the very liveability of cities is at stake if no urgent action is taken. Sure enough, major climate mitigation involves the development models and the socio-economic spheres—including, among others, production, consumption, long-range transportation, and wealth distribution. Nonetheless, local and regional climate impacts can be associated with buildings and with urban systems, where action is also possible at the level of adaptation. Therefore, a call is here made for advances in interdisciplinary dialogue among hard, applied, and social sciences towards increased, adequate knowledge in climate studies and in its direct and indirect effects onto the spheres of urban and regional planning and design, architectural technology, building design, landscape architecture, engineering physics, agro-ecology, construction sciences, urban botany, and more. Moving away from techno-centered approaches, a focus is proposed on key natural resources (starting from energy and water and up to the potential of nature-based solutions) and their crucial roles in all ecosystems, including the massively anthropised and depleted ones.
Dr. Silvio Cristiano
Dr. Giulio Hasanaj
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- urban planning and management
- strong sustainability
- climate resilience
- architectural technology
- urban heat islands
- climate design
- urban biodiversity
- nature-based solutions
- environmental design
- planetary boundaries
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