The 1st City Decarbonisation Itinerant Workshop was organised by the University of Siena (UNISI) between the 23rd and 27th November 2020. The 5-days’ workshop, which was held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, brought together project partners, students and local stakeholders in order to address common onsite challenges and define collaborative urban decarbonisation roadmaps for the Ravacciano neighbourhood in Siena through a ‘learning-by-doing’ method.
Figure 1: 1st City Decarbonisation Workshop – Siena: City Minded Partners
Around 20 students attending the Master’s Course in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Sustainability of the Department of Physical Sciences, Earth and Environment at the University of Siena participated in the workshop. The first four days of the workshop consisted of training sessions to implement a site-specific urban decarbonisation roadmap for the selected neighbourhood conducted by the City Minded partners, followed by a co-working exercise. UNISI also involved some stakeholders from the Municipality of Siena to present the URBiNAT project and share experiences about initiatives that are being implemented in the municipality.
The Ravacciano neighbourhood hosts 1631 inhabitants, with an average density of 35.6 people/hectare. The first settlement has been built during the ‘30s and the built area has grown until the ‘70s and ‘80s. The valleys of Follonica and Ravacciano, separated by the ancient wall, connect the old city to the Ravacciano neighbourhood and the commercial district. These valleys are partially accessible to people and are fractioned into several private properties, besides a few areas with public ownership.
Figure 2: Case study area: Ravacciano neighbourhood and valleys
The following topics were addressed during the first four sessions.
Carbon accounting and carbon footprint mitigation (UNISI)
The Carbon Accounting Methodology, substantially inspired by the IPCC standard methodology for GHG emissions inventory of Nations, has a dual role: to assess the Carbon Footprint of urban neighbourhoods and to estimate the effects, in terms of Carbon Footprint mitigation, of action plans addressed to carbon neutrality. The Carbon Footprint of the Ravacciano neighbourhood (0.46 km2) was presented and visualized in terms of a virtual forestland equivalent, i.e. the equivalent surface of forest that would be needed to absorb carbon emissions generated within the area.
Assessment and analysis of vulnerability associated with climate change (UPO)
Climate change forecasts predict an increase in the frequency and intensity of natural hazards in Italy, among the most serious droughts, floods, and heat waves (IPPC, 2014). The objective of the workshop was to develop an approach to the hybrid nature of risks, in which the interaction between natural events and social processes are related to generate risk situations. The presentation focused on vulnerability to natural hazards in a climate change context and vulnerability Index calculation and representation.
Place-making framework (ROMA TRE)
The place-making framework session focused on three main topics, namely: Introduction to Town Planning, Ecological Networks and Green Infrastructure approach and an Introduction to landscape analysis of Siena. The landscape analysis and interpretation were applied to Ravacciano, showing how to conduct a landscape analysis using aerial photographs, highlighting perceptions, visual connections and forms of the territory. The co-working session introduced the concepts of decarbonisation and urban environment and used the tool of community mapping in order to set a place making framework to plan and design green infrastructure for decarbonisation at local scale.
Energy Efficiency and RES technologies in the active service of the City decarbonisation processes (IRENA and MIEMA)
The last session focused on the improvement of energy efficiency in buildings and the integration of renewable energy technologies. Buildings were chosen among the different energy consumers in the urban areas since the building stock is responsible for approximately 40% of EU energy consumption and 36% of the greenhouse gas emissions. The sessions focused on the existing building stock of the Ravacciano neighbourhood and its energy-efficient improvement and RES integration, as well as methods to detect potential problems and identifying solutions. The co-working session focused on defining energy efficiency measures and RES integration for different building categories within the neighbourhood.
Figure 3: 1st City Decarbonisation Workshop – Siena: Participating students
The workshop was concluded by a final wrap-up on the last day, focusing on the results achieved, which involved both partners and students. The presentations delivered by the groups of students at the end of each co-working session showed that the students obtained a good understanding of the different topics presented.
