A methodology for a green spaces evaluation in the construction of the Urban Green Plan

Recently, green planning is assuming, In Italy, an increasing central role in the planning of urban areas. Indeed, it raised in interest thanks to the Ministry of the Environment that issued Law 10 “Regulations for the development of urban green spaces” in 2013, and elaborated both the “Guidelines for the sustainable governance of urban green” in 2017, and the most recent decrees on urban green (Minimum Environmental Criteria of 06/02/20 and the Public Green Decree of 11/03/20). Leaving aside the form and methods of integrating this specialistic tool into municipal planning (Coppola, 2021a), it is now quite clear that the Green Plan makes it possible to define an organic program of interventions concerning the quantitative and qualitative development of urban green areas in strategic vision from medium to long term. However, in order for the planning function to be well delineated, it is necessary to proceed to an accurate preliminary phase in which the real consistency and state of the urban green areas are carefully evaluated. The Urban Green Census therefore becomes, also in accordance with the law, the first fundamental step to guarantee actually the drafting of a Plan. From a scientific collaboration between the Departments of Agricultural Sciences and Architecture of the University of Naples Federico II, comes the proposal of an evaluation methodology of the 36 standard green areas present in Municipality of Mercogliano (Avellino) using urban, agronomic and ecosystem indicators.