Addressing Urban Uncertainties: Reconnecting Heritage and Nature in Historical Cores

Considering the urgency of adapting urban environments to Climate Change, the role of Urban Green Infrastructures and Nature Based Solutions has been strongly recognised as crucial and an increasing number of research and practical experiences as involved cities in the past decades. However, this effort for adapting cities is not involving all urban areas in the same way. In particular, historical urban centers are almost excluded from the experimentation of NBS because of the additional difficulties they pose. At the same time, historic areas are even more vulnerable to the impact of Climate Change and cultural heritage is recognised as a key element for building improve urban resilience. So, there is a potential synergy with respect to the main goal of urban adaptation, but not exploited up to now. This contribution presents an improved methodology to extend the UGI planning process in historic urban areas, by reconnecting Culture and Nature as pillars of urban resilience and sustainable development. The paper includes a reconstruction of the State of the Art in research and practice, the explanation of a four-steps analysis to reconnect “green history” and “green planning” and the proposal for an improved methodology for planning UGI in historic urban landscapes.