Climate change and coastal cities. A methodology for facing coastal flooding

Coastal cities represent the main vulnerable areas to the climate change impacts (especially to coastal fl ooding) because of the high concentration of people and economic assets that will are foreseen to increase in 2100. Since cities are important sites of global climate actions, urban planning plays a key role in the climate change challenge. In particular, the defi nition of urban adaptation strategies requires the adoption of a systemic approach. Through such an approach, indeed, it is possible to consider in a holistic way all elements, which affect the urban resilience of coastal areas to climate events, such as coastal fl ooding. However, the literature review and the analysis of urban planning experiences have shown that procedures for assessing the resilience level of coastal cities and tools for addressing decision-makers to implement resilient policies and actions in these areas are not well established. Therefore, the aim of this work is the introduction of a methodology based on a systemic approach for providing urban planning actions in order to improve the resilience of more exposed urban areas to coastal fl ooding. The proposed methodology takes into account the need to be implemented in a GIS environment to a case study. Moreover, it can be a useful tool for supporting the defi nition of urban adaptation strategies in relation to coastal fl ooding impacts.