Housing and industrial spaces. Climate change and strategies for urban regeneration

According to recent evaluations, the inevitable climate change will significantly impact the Mediterranean environment, raising temperatures and increasing rainfall, reducing available water resources and increasing the number of extreme weather events . In the last century, the average temperature in Europe increased by 1°C and this has already caused an alteration in the rainfall trend. Climate changes will gradually cause extreme phenomena that have different determinants and different natures depending on the geographic position and topography of the territory as well as different environmental, ecological, social and economic impacts. Studies in the field of city planning and of urban and environmental design have underlined the effects caused by diffuse urbanization and excessive urban soil sealing that have reduced the natural processes of infiltration and evaporation of waters, thus contributing to the overheating of urban climate known as “urban heat islands”. In order to check the vulnerability of urban areas, the forecast of risk scenarios induced by climate change on a local level is a crucial aspect in the definition of mitigation and adaptation strategies. Suitable strategic actions for the regulation and application of sustainability principles in urban management processes should be based on long-term management of the global water cycle. They should also consider the development of technological processes to recharge aquifers and for the mitigation of climate change, by means of re-balancing measures known as the “small water cycle”. The east side of Naples is one of the areas with the most critical factor of climate risk for the environment, referred to a part of the broad reconstruction plan after the earthquake in 1980. The design solutions aimed at adaptation provided the integration of urban green, microclimate buffers, materials with high albedo rates and evapotranspiration solutions to reduce air temperature by at least 3°C, together with technical solutions and materials to satisfy microclimate wellbeing requirements.