Planning Bologna as a smart City at the BLUE AP project second meeting

Posted on

The Scientific Board LIFE+ BLUE AP project second meeting launched

How to make our cities more resilient and able to meet the climate change challenges? Bologna, as the first municipality in Italy to sign the Mayors Adapt Initiative while developing a pioneering adaptation plan to climate change with the BLUE AP project, is thinking about it.
A Scientific Board, leaded and coordinated by the CMCC, to address key topics such as droughts, heat waves, rain extreme events and hydrological risk. A space of discussion to underline local barriers, measures and action to realize a strategy for local adaptation while improving citizen awareness and involvement. All of this started at the Urban Center in Bologna at the Scientific Board BLUE AP project second meeting.

BOLOGNA, 9 October 2014 – Adapting to climate change is necessary to strengthen the resilience of our social and economic systems to the negative impacts of a changing climate. Effective adaptation action can reduce overall damage costs, save natural and human assets and stimulate economic regeneration.

Aiming at these goals the Scientific Board BLUE AP project (LIFE11 ENV/IT/119 – “Bologna Local Urban Environment Adaptation Plan for a Resilient City”) second meeting takes place today in Bologna, on 9th October 2014, with a presentation and discussion on the strategy for local adaptation and definition of the detailed action plan on adaptation of Bologna. The event is a crucial milestone to define a local adaptation strategy to tackle climate change, while waiting for the Mayors Adapt ceremony in Bruxelles on October 16th, 2014, where the City of Bologna will be present as the first Italian municipality signatory of the pact.

The Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) is President and coordinates the BLUE AP Scientific Board with the activities coordinated by Sergio Castellari.

More in detail, BLUE AP partners have decided to split the work into two subsequent documents according to what the European Commission has suggested following the signature of the City of Bologna of the Mayors Adapt Initiative last May.

The first document, the “Strategy for local adaptation”, contains the main objectives for adaptation, how Bologna intends to achieve them and what measurable targets have been considered. The second one, the “Detailed action plan on adaptation”, will be produced on the basis of the comments received during the meeting and completed by the end of December. The discussion is focused on three sections, that is drought and water scarcity; heat waves in urban areas; rain extreme events and hydrological risk. Local barriers and urgent measures to be adopted will be analyzed during the debate while investigating how to improve citizen involvement in this process.

A spokesperson for the Italian Ministry for Environment, Land and Water (Ministero dell’Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare), partners of the project , among them, the council member Patrizia Gabellini, and international and national experts join the meeting. The experts from the Scientific Board are ten: Jan Rasmussen (Copenhagen, Denmark), Andrea Filpa (Faculty of Architecture, University of Roma Tre, Roma, Italy), Alfons Finkers (The Hague, The Netherlands), Margaretha Breil (CMCC / Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Venice, Italy), Jaroslav Mysiak (CMCC / Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Venice, Italy), Gary McGrogan (Sheffield, UK), Michele Vurro (Bari, Italy), Andrea Limauro (Washington, USA), Barbara Norman (University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia), Luca de Stefanis (Portland, Oregon, USA).

The event will conclude with the technical visit of the Chiusa of Casalecchio, a complex structure which provides water in Bologna for 8 centuries, to explore some water dynamics and issues.

Contacts
Mauro Buonocore –  CMCC Press office
tel. 0832 671060 – mob. +39 3337045214 – email [email protected]

Contacts in Bologna
[email protected]  [email protected]
Phones: Eva Banos: Office: +39 051 3782672; + 39 3485164255

Start typing and press Enter to search

Shopping Cart