Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), is a relatively new entry in the vocabulary of environmental sciences and planning. It is a concept introduced specifically to promote nature as a means for providing solutions to climate mitigation and adaptation challenges, but has gained quickly the status of an umbrella term encompassing a wide range of practices inspired by, supported by or copied from nature. Within Europe, policy makers have integrated the concept into their new framework programme for research and innovation, ‘Horizon 2020’, providing a new narrative involving biodiversity and ecosystem services aligned with goals of innovation for growth and job creation, and with a potential opening for transformational pathways towards sustainable societal development (Nesshöver et al. 2016).

NBS are at the heart of the innovations imagined by the Upper project to co-design Latina's public green spaces with citizens in order to improve environmental conditions, safeguard biodiversity, promote green entrepreneurship, environmental education and the inclusion of disadvantaged people. With this conference we want to discuss the potential of Nature Based Solution to endorse a new urban policy paradigm with a strong systemic approach based on sustainability and social inclusion. The concept of grafting adopted in the title is the metaphor for a practice that combines robust roots solidly grounded in the specificities of the territory with new innovative practices and knowledge able to produce more resilient and fruitful sprouts.

The two day conference will propose an International session in English dedicated to the EU perspective, and a second day in Italian more focused on the application to the national and local context. The conference will be completed by site visits and co-design activities included in the UPPER action plan, with the purpose to concretely link the theoretical discussion with the application of the project’s ideas on the territory.

This event is the third of the series of policy conferences organised by the UPPER project and is organised by Tesserae Urban Social Research in collaboration with Ce.R.S.I.Te.S. - Centro Ricerca e Servizi per l’Innovazione Tecnologica della Sapienza - Università di Roma.

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15:30 Welcome and program of the day - Lorenzo Tripodi, Tesserae Urban Social Research

15.35 Institutional greetings, Comune di Latina

15:40 Urban Innovative Actions - Tommaso Galli, UIA

15:50 EU Urban policy and research on NBS, innovation and measurement

conference coordinator: Giuseppe Bonifazi, Sapienza University of Rome

• Introduction - Cristina Simone, Sapienza University of Rome

• Naturvation - Intza Balenciaga, ICLEI

• Go Green Routes - Tadhg MacIntyre, National University of Ireland Maynooth, project coordinator

• GreenUP Vertical Edible: Changing Paradigm for Healthier Cities - Giacomo Pirazzoli, DIDA - Università di Firenze

• The importance of the mobility footprint to guide and monitor strategic policies - Hubert Dusausoy, Engie

17.10 Discussion and conclusions

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Urbanization is one of the greatest challenges to global sustainability under various profiles: climate change; access to food, water and energy resources; the shortage and inadequacy of essential public services such as health care, public transport, residential construction, waste cycle management and water services. At the same time, inequalities, social unease, and cultural deprivation are emerging in the urban suburbs of many cities.

On the other hand, the EU lacks a shared European Constitution and lacks a deep cultural, linguistic, and social cohesion. In this fragmented institutional scenario, which EU policies could effectively address these challenges? What infrastructural interventions would you suggest for addressing the aforementioned challenges?

Urban resilience is defined as the capacity of an urban system to adapt to changes either by absorbing sudden disturbances (absorption) or by managing to maintain or restore initial functions without limiting future adaptability (adaptation) but also, when intense alterations and disturbances occur, as the capacity to design and undertake broader and deeper changes that can even lead to transformation (transformability). What about the capacity for NBSs to enable an effective transformative resilience (i.e. not only an absorptive or adaptive resilience)? How is it possible to measure the contribution of the NBSs to the urban resilience to prove their effectiveness?

Regarding the urban governance, the pandemic crisis has highlighted, on the one hand, all the limits of fragmented approaches lacking in adaptability and, on the other hand, the urgency of systemic approaches based on proactive planning logics. What are the COVID-19 lessons learned for a sustainable urban management?

Which operational technologies are the ones currently used to monitor the effects of NBS? What are the advantages and limits of their use?

What influence can the time scale have in relation to a real and concrete evaluation of NBS results through technologies? Integrated and participatory use of monitoring technologies is “really” feasible at a municipal and/or citizen level?