Learning from Two Early Brownfield Redevelopment Projects in Italy: Soil Desealing, Cooling Effects, and Implementation of Nature-Based Solutions Through Traditional Planning Tools

Abstract

Consideration of the future fate of brownfields in urban environments has driven a complex ‘season’ of decisions, planning, and implementation that has seen the emergence of different approaches and actions for their reuse. Among the various experiences of brownfield redevelopment, some projects have also promoted the partial renaturalisation of areas through soil desealing and demolition of existing buildings. These greening initiatives have provided new public facilities, e.g., parks and green areas, helping to improve the conditions of urban environments both from ecological and social perspectives. This article adopts ex ante and ex post methods to analyse two Italian case studies of brownfield regeneration involving desealing interventions and investigates two key aspects: (i) the planning process and tools that were put in place to implement the projects and (ii) the impacts for human wellbeing that were produced in terms of cooling effects. The analyses conducted show the real effectiveness of renaturation interventions especially related to reforestation measures in terms of temperature reduction. The examination of the two case studies also revealed the importance and potential success of traditional planning and implementation tools in promoting interventions that can now be considered innovative in terms of their actual contribution to current urban challenges. The results therefore allow us to emphasize the fundamental importance of the philosophy and basic principles of a transformation process, even guided by traditional planning tools, for the improvement of the environmental conditions of an urban context and the successful implementation of nature-based solutions.