2026: Special Issue. Urban and Territorial Resilience. Urbanism Facing Crisis
Special Issue. Urban and Territorial Resilience. Urbanism Facing Crisis

Participation and Spatial Analysis to make Cities Resilient to Climate Change. The Historic Center of Genoa

Fabrizio Bruno
IUSS Pavia | University of Genoa
Ilenia Spadaro
Polytechnic School, Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Genoa, 16145, Genoa, Italy
Federica Paoli
Polytechnic School, Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Genoa, 16145, Genoa, Italy
Barbara Poggio
Municipality of Genoa, International Affairs, 16145 Genoa, Italy
Francesca Pirlone
Polytechnic School, Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Genoa, 16145, Genoa, Italy

Published 2026-01-29

Keywords

  • urban resilience,
  • spatial analysis,
  • climate change,
  • historic centers,
  • participation

How to Cite

Bruno, F., Spadaro, I., Paoli, F., Poggio, B., & Pirlone, F. (2026). Participation and Spatial Analysis to make Cities Resilient to Climate Change. The Historic Center of Genoa. Contesti. Città, Territori, Progetti, 262–287. https://doi.org/10.36253/contest-16540

Abstract

Climate change represents one of the most urgent challenges of the 21st century; Historic Centers are highly vulnerable to its effects, and, in a scenario of worsening climate regimes, it is crucial to explore innovative methods and tools to promote adaptation to climate change specific to these multi-risk contexts. However, research in this field is still underdeveloped, especially when it comes to the active involvement of territorial stakeholders in identifying and managing multiple climate-related risks-prone areas. This paper proposes a participatory methodology developed within the EU-funded HERIT ADAPT project aims at analyzing the criticalities affecting Historic Centers and co-designing interventions for the multi-risk adaptation of them to climate change. The application of the methodology to the case study of the Historic Centre of Genoa is presented and first results are reported. The goal is to test and generalize the approach to make it as objective and replicable as possible, by identifying processes and technological tools, as well as categories of data that can be easily found in official databases related to historical urban contexts.

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