Co-production of knowledge for climate-resilient design and planning in Naples, Italy

Abstract

In terms of both understanding risk and creating urban resilience measures, integrated knowledge and commu-nity involvement are recognized as crucial to activating risk-reduction processes embedded in decision-making, the social fabric and daily life of risk-affected communities. This article outlines a path to implementing co-production in urban planning and design practices to overcome the issue of knowledge transfer in the fields of Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in order to build collective learning processes at multiple dimensions (community, academia, education, institutions). For this aim the case of Naples (Italy) is analyzed as an urban context in which marginalization phenomena coupled with high environmental risks have been over-looked by configured a scenario of socio-ecological stress in which traditional planning and business as usual urban policies have demonstrated a systematic failure. Climate-resilient design experiments with participatory tools were used to investigate the everyday dimension of risk and contextualize climate change effects in the urban fabric and their relationship with community issues. It is concluded that participatory mapping tools in cases of socio-environmental vulnerability can foster a more inclusive learning process about urban risks and ways to respond that. A comprehensive co-production strategy carried out at analysis, design and implementation levels has the potential to promote community-based processes and influence the inclusiveness of planning decisions.